
Qass 11^, 

Book A ^ 



Vw--lr'(Y>i^ Jrf— 



(^ 







The cranium lay beneath tlie roots of a cypress tree 
beloniiuiii- to the fourth forest level below the surface. 
(See page 190,) 



THE 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 



A TEXT BOOK FOR IISVESTIGATORS. 



THF BIBLE WEIGHED IN THE BALANCE WITH 
fflS?ORY CHRONOLOGY, SCIENCE, LITERATURE 
AND ITSELF-WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. 



BY KEY. J. G. riSH. 



— " Prove all things."— 




PHILADELPHIA. 

PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR, 

610 Akch Street. 

1810. 



:^ 






Entered according to an act of Congress, in the year 1870, by 

J. G. FISH, 
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



s. 




Cheistendom sends missionaries to India to 
teach the heathen the laws of God and the waj of 
life. These the heathen would accept, were they 
superior to those with which their minds have been 
familiar from their youth. Thus, Sir William 
Jones in his treatise on the Gods of Greece, Italy 
and India in vol. 3, page 396 of his works : " The 
Hmdoos, on the other hand, would readily accept 
the Gospel, but they contend it is perfectly consis- 
tent with their saftras." This is a broad admission 
for a christian divine. That book called the Bible, 
is fragmentary in its composition and foreign in its 
extraction, and its expounders cannot tell why there 
should be so many points of resemblance between 
it and heathen writings. The theologian claims a 
canon of the Old Testament, and one of the New, 
both decided by God. There never came before 
my mind evidence of either. It is claimed for the 
Bible that it gives a correct account of the creation. 
In this it differs from geology, and to my mind the 
latter is the best authority. It is claimed that the 
Bible gives a correct chronology of the leading 
events in the history of the antedeluvian world to 



VI PREFACE. 

the time of the delnge, and thence down to Moses, 
and thence to Christ. This chronology is incorrect 
and defective. The Bible is said to be a correct 
history of events. It is a history that no reasona- 
ble mind can believe. It is said to be true scien- 
tifically. It is at variance with science at every 
step. It is said to teach a just and benevolent 
God. It teaches a God malevolent and unjust, 
cruel and vindictive. It is said to teach morality 
and purity. It allows, inculcates and enforces the 
grossest immorality and most disgusting impurity. 
It is said to be entirely consistent with itself. It 
abounds in inconsistencies and self contradictions. 
It is said to make man, by sanctification, " perfect 
in Christ Jesus." He is anything but what would 
be called a good, benevolent, sympathetic man and 
philanthropist as the result of the process. It 
places the creation of the world and of man back 
only six thousand years. History places man back 
from ten to twelve thousand years, and geology 
some hundreds/bf thousands, and the earth many 
millions of years. It is claimed for the Bible that 
it was written under divine inspiration for man's 
guidance. The ^writers seem not to have known 
anything of this, and to have attached no such 
importance to their productions. It is said God 



PREFACE. Vll 

Las preserved his word from mutilation and cor- 
ruption. There is probably not a perfect and un- 
corrupted chapter in the whole book. It is called 
chaste in style. Some parts are unfit to be read iu 
any promiscuous company, and its expounders do 
not for decency's sake, pretend to read them in pub- 
lic. It is said to be original. Many of its parts are 
the veriest plagiarisms and bare-faced frauds. 

To set these points in their proper light before 
the reading public, is the object of the present vol- 
ume. I have been twenty-five years on this inves- 
tigation, and seven years of that time connected 
with the pulpit. Twelve years ago I left my con- 
nection with the Christian church, satisfied its 
theology and religion were radically wrong, and the 
Bible not a reliable book, nor the claims set up for 
it just and true. Frequent discussions since that 
time with well informed clergymen, have resulted 
in strengthening these convictions and making more 
apparent the weakness of their Bible defences. 
Yielding to solicitation, I have been induced to put 
forth my arguments in this more tangible and lasting 
form. Feeling not yet fully prepared, I have in the 
preparation of the present work been materially 
aided by several learned gentlemen, (I will not 
mention names), of this City, and financially by 



Vlll PREFACE. 

others, for all of which favors they have, and will 
please accept my unfeigned thanks. The material 
at my command has been almost boundless, and it 
has been my greatest trouble to judiciously select, 
and properly condense this material to bring it in an 
impressive form, within the compass of this book. 
So far as fact and authoritv are concerned, I am 
happy to say I have given the latest and the best, 
and in this respect my work is above criticism. 
"With regard to its arrangement and composition, I 
am painfully sensible of its many imperfections, and 
can but regret that a work of this importance to the 
religious public, had not fallen into more competent 
hands. I must claim for it however, in this respect 
the redemption of three chapters, two by the eru- 
dite antiquarian, Mr. Charles Morris, of this City, 
and one by the learned explorer and geologist, M. 
"W. Dickeson, M. D., which appear under their re- 
spective names, received as personal compliments, 
written expressly for this work, for which they will 
please accept mine as well as the readers thanks. 
With its merits and its imperfections, of which the 
reader will judge, I give it to the world. 

J. G. FISH. 
Philadelphia, July 25th, 1870. 



THE BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 



CHAPTER I. 
Old Testament Canons. 

Pkobablt no book in the English, or any other 
language, has undergoDe so many translations and 
transcriptions, versions and recensions, as the Bible. 
From the earliest days of its history, such an ap- 
pearance of inaccuracy, extravagance and corrup- 
tion presented itself to every critical reader learned 
and unlearned, that some who were competent, and 
many who were incompetent, were induced to at- 
tempt its correction and purification by new and 
revised translations in the latter days of the Jewish 
polity, and the early ages of the Christian era. 

Whatever may have been its original purity and 
perfection, these, like the innocence and purity of 
Paradise are gone, and gone forever; and the origin- 
al manuscripts, that alone can settle the standard 
of correctness, like the site of that same Paradise 
from the great chart of the earth, have perished, 
ages ago, from the sacred literary map of the world. 

Man, to-day, as a religious being, with the Bible 



10 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

in his hand as a guide, is drifting on the great sea 
of doubt and uncertainty, and no Ararat, as yet, 
lifts its head, whereon his ark, freighted with his 
hopes, may rest. Praiseworthy as have been the 
efforts of pious men to restore the supposed lost 
purity of God's word, the task was commenced too 
late, for the originals were gone, and no standard of 
appeal was to be found, a melancholy fact, apparent 
from the many translations and readings and ren- 
derings of the same texts by different individuals, 
and the disagreement among these translators and 
compilers, as to what manuscripts were, and what 
were not the genuine word of God. Ask we to-day 
for the real and genuine voice of "the Spirit," and 
so many varying echoes are heard in response, that, 
in the din of discordant voices we forget our own 
question, and exclaim, " If ever there were an an- 
cient Babel around which there was a " confusion 
of tongues," this Bible furnishes a modern instance 
of the same kind ;" and we are glad to retreat from 
the babbling confusion and sit calmly down to an 
examination of the documents left us, that may yet 
throw light on the origin and history of this mys- 
terious book, the cause of all this discord and con- 
tention, the author of all these hopes and these fears, 
these prospects, doubts and uncertainties that form 
the religious billows on which we have so long been 
tossed. The waters of strife assuaged from our 
own soul, we pluck from its verdant gardens an 
" olive branch" which we present to each varying 
sect respectively, and proceed to the task before us. 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 11 

As the general reader may not be aware how 
many translations, transcriptions, compilations and 
versions the Bible has undergone by different schol- 
ars and in different times, as condensed an account 
as possible from De Wette, and others, will be given, 
with as clear a history of each as possible in the 
scanty limits of this work. 

The Old Testament is generally supposed to have 
been written wholly in Hebrew. Such however is 
not the case. Parts of it were written in the Cbaldee 
language. " These portions are Daniel 2d, 4th — 7, 
Ezra 4 : 8. 15 : 18. 7 : 12—26., and Jeremiah 10 : 11," 
(De Wette, Yol. 1, pp. 11 & 12). These writings 
were considered by the Jews and the ancient Cliris- 
tians as holy and inspired, being the sum total of 
the relics,of Hebrew— Chaldee literature up to a cer- 
tain period. 

The Old Testament apocryphal writings are of 
later date, and written partly in Greek, and, in part, 
translated into that language from the Hebrew. 
They are all Jewish productions, but were not con- 
sidered sacred by that nation nor by the early Chris- 
tian church. 

" The New Testament contains the genuine wri- 
tings — which are accounted inspired and sacred 

of the first Christian times, composed by the apos- 
tles of Christ and their assistants and pupils, 
relating to the history and doctrine of the Christian 
Eeligion," (De Wette, vol. 1. p. 12). However 
genuine they may be admitted to be, their originality 
will remain as the subject for a succeeding chapter. 



12 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

"With regard to the number of the Books of the 
Old Testament, there are the most conflicting opin- 
ions and enumerations. Josephus says "for we 
have not among us myriad a of books inconsistent 
and conflicting, but only twenty-two books contain- 
ing the record of all past time, and which are justly 
confided in as divine. Five of these belong to 
Moses, and contain the laws and the traditions re- 
specting the origin of mankind until his death. This 
time is little less than three thousand years. From 
the death of Moses to the reign of Artaxerxes, king 
of the Persians after Xerxes, the prophets, who 
were after Moses, wrote the events of their times in 
thirteen books. The four remaining books contain 
hymns to God and rules of life. Every thing has 
been written from Artaxerxes to our time; but this 
later account is not esteemed as of equal authority 
with the former, for there has not been a continual 
succession of prophets," (Against Apion B. 1. C. 8.) 
This enumeration " based upon the number of 
letters of the Hebrew alphabet, (De Wette, vol. 
1, p. 16), is entirely arbitrary ;" still it was followed 
by the Christians, but never current among the Pal- 
estine Jews, nor universal among the Greek Jews. 
The Septuagint includes the bookof Euth with that 
of Judges, and the Lamentations of Jeremiah, with 
the prophecies of that man, whose eyes were ever 
as the April cloud. 

The Talmud enumerates twenty-four, but is not 
exact. Counting the Pentateuch in its five separate 
books, Samuel in two. Kings and Chronicles each 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 13 

two, twelve minor prophets, and Ezra and Nehe- 
miah, we have thirty -nine books in all. With re- 
gard to the collection of the books of the Old 
Testament, and the formation of the canon by the 
Jews themselves, as contended for by many Chris- 
tian writers of more or less claim to credence, sufiice 
it to say, that the whole claim rests upon nothing 
but a mere Jewish tradition, that the work was per- 
formed by Ezra and other members of the great 
synagogue, the very existence of which, (the syna- 
gogue) no Jewish history proves. " This tradition 
vanishes as soon as we examine the ground on which 
it rests. It is not a subject for refutation," (Do 
Wette, vol. 1, p. 28.) " Consequently the legends 
of the great synagogue were first collected from 
Jewish tradition at a recent date," (Bichhorn § 5). 

Since the pretended great synagogue was the only 
council in the estimation of any writers by which 
the Old Testament canon could have been settled, 
and this council only an imaginary one, the conclu- 
sion is, that the canon was settled by no authority 
whatever, and that every Jew was left to his own 
judgment as to what books, if any, were of divine 
inspiration and authority and what were not. 

The tradition that the books of the Hebrews 
having become corrupt, some passages omitted and 
others added, and that Ezra was inspired to restore 
the purity of the text, and did so, by expunging all 
that was spurious and adding all that had been lost, 
deserves no notice in this connection, since it is re- 
2 



14 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

garded as wholly untrue by Irenseus, Clemens 
Alexandrinus, Turtullian, Theodoret, Chrysostum, 
and other ancient critics and historians. " However, 
it is certain that the whole of the Old Testament 
collection came gradually into existence, and, as it 
were of itself and by force of custom or public use 
acquired a sort of sanction," (De Wette, vol. 1, 
p. 33). 

In the prologue of Jesus, the son of Sirach, is the 
first mention we have of the Old Testament as a 
whole. This was about 130 B. C, but the passage 
does not prove that the third part of the canon — 
the Hagiography — was then complete, or that it had 
then been closed in its present form. Neither 
Matt. (23 : 35), nor Luke (24 : 44), settles the ques- 
tion. Philo, who wrote about 40 B. C, though he 
mentions the Old Testament as a whole, still not 
mentioning all parts of it, is not a competent wit- 
ness. Jesephus, although he declares a specific 
number of books and a complete canon, still he is 
at fault as to the time of its completion, which he 
places in the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus, 
which Persian king died B. C, 424. Claiming a 
complete canon, he still admits a further inspiration, 
which continued even down to his own time, yet, 
the later account is not esteemed of equal authority 
with the former, on account of no prophetic succeS" 
sion, in which he is about as consistent as the Cath- 
olic and Episcopal churches of our own time, who 
consider apostolic succession indispensibly requisite 
to ecclesiastical wisdom and divine approval. We 



BIBLE m THE BALANCE. 15 

shall see however, as we proceed, that several books, 
written long after the time of Artaxerxes, were 
included bj various authorities, in the Old Testa- 
ment canon. The canon of Joseph us is this, — Moses, 
five books, viz : Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, ITum- 
bers aud Deuteronomy, then thirteen Prophets 1, 
Joshua 2, Judges and Euth 3, two books of Samuel 
4, two books of Kings 5, two books of Chronicles 
6, Ezra and Nehemiah 7, Esther 8, Isaiah 9, Jere- 
miah and Lamentations 10, Ezekiel 11, Daniel 12. 
The minor Prophets, viz : Hosea, Joel, Amos, Oba- 
diah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, 
Haggai, Zachariah and Malachi. The four books 
of "hymns to God and rules of life," are Psalms, 
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Canticles, or Songs of 
Solomon. 

From this enumeration some authors, as Oeder in 
his "Free Inquiry on the Canon," page 61:, thinks 
the books of Esther, Chronicles, Ezra and Nehe- 
miah, were excluded. 

From the foregoing statements and citations, we 
cannot shut our eyes to the fact that God, even to 
the Jews, his so called inspired people, never, to 
their knowledge, signified to them what was to be 
regarded as the sacred canon, and what was not. 
The opinion was universal among them that the 
writers were inspired, and that these productions 
were the result of this divine inspiration. Of the 
character of the writings however, there were two 
opinions between which there could scarcely be 
said to be a difierence. Accordinor to one thev were 



16 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

merely a collection of national writings^ and accord- 
ing to the other, they were a collection of sacred 
writings. Both opinions may be said to be correct. 
Judging from the contents of nearly all the books 
of the Old Testament, the spirit of Jewish antiquity 
was eminently theocratic ; for whatever was regar- 
ded as national was also looked upon as religious. 
Their church and state being one, the two views 
could be regarded only in the light of a distinction 
where no real difference actually existed. 

Samaritan Canon. 

Two facts must ever be kept in mind respecting 
the Samaritans. First, their severe enmity to the 
Jews, and, second, their great and almost unbound- 
ed reverence for Moses. These two reasons led 
them to accept of the Old Testament writings, only 
those of Moses as divinely inspired. True, as De- 
Wette asserts, they had a " recasting of the book of 
Joshua," but not the original, which, therefore, 
could not be said to form part of their canon. 
Their real canon then consisted of the five books of 
Moses only. In this they enjoy the sympathies of 
Philo, for he declares that Moses was the onlv 
teacher of religious mysteries ; " the other writers 
having only a general inspiration of which himself 
was a partaker," (De Cherubino p. 112.) Here then 
we find the entire Samaritan nation ignoring and 
rejecting all the writings of the Old Testament as 
of neither divine authority nor binding force, ex- 
cepting the first five books, and Philo one of the 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 17 

most learned Jews of his time, partially, if not 
wholly, sustaining them in the exercise of this ec- 
lectic optomism. In the same manner Josephus 
(Antiq. 13, 10, 7) claims this inspiration for others, 
and says, " Hyrcanus possessed the three great 
privileges; viz., government of the nation, the 
priesthood and prophecy ; for God was with him 
and enabled him to foretell," etc. "Josephus as- 
cribes this gift to himself," (Theodore Parkers' Note 
in De Wette Yol. 1, p. 43.) Discovering thus the 
fact that there were recognized the two classes of 
inspiration, the particular and the general, or the 
superior and the inferior, we find the Samaritans, 
very justly, forming their sacred canon of five 
books, out of the highest and the best. 

Canon of the Sadducees. 

That the Sadducees acknowledged and used the 
same canon as the Pharisees, is evident from sev- 
eral considerations, though several of the Fathers 
have stated that they rejected all but the books of 
Moses, and modern critics have fallen into the same 
error, from the fact, that Jesus, when he would con- 
vince the Sadducees of the resurrection from the 
dead, did not refer to the Prophets, or the Hagiogra- 
phy, where several proofs occur in the form of pas- 
sages to the point, but called their attention merely 
to Moses, as if the other testimony were of no value, 
the sadducees not regarding them of sufficient relia - 
bility to settle the important issue. This, on the 
part of Jesus may have been merely accidental. 



18 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

It is known that the Sadducees, as a sect, separated 
from the Jews after the canon had been completed, 
and hence it is not to be supposed they would, at 
this time, make a difference between the books they 
had previously held as entirely canonical, but would 
still receive them, at least, so far as their teachings 
agreed with Moses. Joseph us, who understood well 
the doctrines of both sects, merely says that " the 
Sadducees, rejecting all tradition, adhered only to 
the written law^'' without informing us how many 
books constituted that written law. He states the 
difference in doctrine between the Pharisees and 
Sadducees, but does not intimate that that differ- 
ence arose from different canons acknowledged by 
the two. The whole ground of difference then, 
seems to be the rejection of tradition by the Saddu- 
cees, and varying interpretations of the text of a 
common canon. 

A Sadducee family in the time of Christ, held the 
office of high priest, and had for a long time pre- 
viously, and, since the prophets were read in the 
temple, as well as Moses, it is perfectly inexplicable 
how this could be if the high priest received only 
the latter and rejected the former. He must have 
held them both in equal respect. When Rabbi 
Gedaliah proved the resurrection of the dead not 
only from Moses, but also from the Prophets and 
the Hagiography, the Sadducees admitted the two 
latter as of equal value and authority with the for- 
mer in settling theological controversies. The con- 
clusion is therefore resistless, that the two Jewish 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 19 

sects used a common canon, but not the present 
one. 

The So-called Alexandeian Canoit. 

The general belief of Christendom is, that about 
195 to 185 B. C, the whole canon of the Old Testa- 
ment, then complete as we now have it, underwent 
a translation from the Hebrew into Greek, by what 
is popularly termed the " Council of the 70." This 
" council of 70" ig generally believed to have been 
composed of 70 Alexandrian Jews, and hence the 
canon is interchangably termed the " Septuagint can- 
on," and the *' Alexandrian canon." The ques- 
tion now arises was there ever such a council ? and 
did that council give to the world the Old Testament 
canon in its present form? Facts to sustain such a 
claim, it must be confessed, are extremely scarce, 
while evidences against it are numerous and pow- 
erful. 

Be it remembered " there are no facts from which 
it can be inferred that the Egyptian Jews them- 
selves ever formally acknowledged a peculiar 
canon of the Old Testament," (De Wette vol. 1, 
p. 46). It is generally supposed that all the Jews 
were agreed as to this canon. This cannot be so, 
and the Palestine Jews at least, could not have fa- 
vored it, for they made a careful separation between 
some of the books, and part of them they did not 
read. Thus, Josephus as cited above — " but these 
books are not accounted of equal value with those 
before them, because there was no exact succession 



20 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

of prophets." Again, tlie Palestine Jews had a 
great aversion to foreign languages and literature, 
as shown bj Josephus (Antiq. 20, 11, 2). " For our 
nation does not encourage those that learn the lan- 
guages of many nations, and so adorn their dis- 
courses with the smoothness of their periods, because 
they look upon this sort of accomplishment as 
common, not only to all sorts of free men, but to as 
many of the servants as please to learn them." 
Now, did the Palestine and the Egyptian Jews dis- 
agree in the separation spoken of above, of the 
canon, into the Old Testament, and Apocryphy ? 
Philo, an Alexandrian Jew, is a competent witness on 
this point. He makes no use of the Apocryphy. 
Eichhorn § 26 says. " His contempt for them (the 
Apocryphal books) was very great. He never does 
them the honor he confers upon Plato, Philolaus, 
Solon, Hippocrates, Heraclitus and others, from 
whose writings he often extracts whole passages" 
(Esdras 14-44), may be regarded as somewhat in 
proof of a canon, but to my mind it is decidedly 
against it. The passage is this, speaking of the 
composition of these books, "In forty days they 
wrote two hundred and four books. And it came 
to pass whea the forty days were fulfilled, that the 
highest spake, saying, ' the first thou hast written 
publish openly, that the worthy and the unworthy 
may read it ; but keep the seventy last, that thou 
mayest deliver them only to such as be wise among 
the people, for in them is the spring of wisdom and 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 21 

understanding, and the fountain of wisdom and the 
stream of knowledge.' " 

" The Alexandrian version which was consid- 
ered as inspired, was very early enlarged by the 
productions of the later Jewish writers, both in the 
translations and in the original writings." (De 
Wette, vol 1, pp. 45 and 46). Here then we lose 
all trace, if indeed there ever was one, of an Alex- 
andrian canon, and this fact will become more ap- 
parent in a subsequent chapter on versions. It is 
truly humiliating when thus searching for facts, to 
find them mere falacies, and canons that were sup- 
posed settled by councils of the pious and the 
learned, to have been adopted only by common 
consent, and that too, by those who knew as little 
of the decision and direction of the divine spirit at 
the time, as we after the lapse of so many centuries. 

In concluding this chapter on the Old Testament 
canons, there is not the least" trace of any superin- 
tending hand and intelligence in preparing and pre- 
serving a canon, above those of man. The claim 
that God directed the work in infinite wisdom for 
man's enlightenment and guidance, is the last 
that should be set up for it, so far as the canon is 
concerned. In our examination we have found two 
real and one spurious canon which cannot be called 
a canon at all, while the two real ones contain only 
five books that were considered divinely inspired. 
The subject, pregnant with the facts here set forth, 
and their emergent conclusions, I leave on the minds 
of my readers. 



22 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

The question will be asked, when, where, and to 
whom did God make known what was his revealed 
word of old ? The answer may, with propriety, be 
in the language of Origin respecting the author of 
the Epistle to the Hebrews, " God only knows." 
The prophets are dead and cannot tell. Priests, 
as priests always do, have their "own axes to 
grind," and are not good authority. Pharisees and 
Sadduccees use one common canon, but it contains 
too much. It pleases Josephus, and he acknowl- 
edges it all, but with a reserve, as " there had 
not been an uninterrupted succession of prophets." 
This reserve refers to the apocryphal books. Philo 
rejects and holds in contempt these latter, while the 
Samaritans representing ten-twelfths of the Jewish 
nation, accept only the five books of Moses and a 
" recast" of Joshua ; and to the question " what is 
the canon of God's word ?" they have each and all, 
left us in reply, the melancholy legacy of their own 
ignorance. 



CHAPTEE II. 

New Testament Canon. 

The origin and history of the New Testament, 
though much more modern than that of the Old, is 
still shrouded in much mystery and uncertainty. 

The earliest Christians had only the Old as a re- 
ligious book ; but after a lapse of years, the gosples 
and epistles came gradually into use among them, 
and, although no more divine in their estimation as 
to their authorship and inspiration than the Old 
Testament, nevertheless, considered more specifi- 
cally adapted to the wants of the world at that 
time. At what period or periods these new writings 
came into use, there is at this time no certain 
means of ascertaining; as we find, at first, but 
siiofht reference made to them amonoj Christian 
authors, the earliest of whom are kuQwn as the 
Apostolic Fathers. 

The mention made of the Epistles of Paul in (2 
Peter 3, 15, 16), proves that that Epistle is not gen- 
uine, since it was in the order of the writing of the 
Epistles, older than the Epistles to which it re- 
fers. The Apostolic Fathers are five, viz. Bar- 
nabas and Clement, Bishop of Kome, and hence 
called Clemens Romanus, who wrote each A. D. 
96, Hermas, Ignatius and Polycarp, Bishops sever- 
ally, of Home, Antioch and Smyrna, who wrote A. 



24 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

D. 100. Clement in (Epistle, 1, to the Cor. c. 47.) 
writes, " Take the Epistle of the blessed Paul, the 
Apostle. What did he write to you in the begin- 
ning of the gospel ? Certainly he wrote to you by 
the spirit, concerning himself, and Cephas, and 
ApoUos, because, even then you had become in- 
clined. Compare this with 1 Cor. 4. 

Polycarp, in his epistle to the Philippians, (c. 8), 
uses the following, " Paul who being present with 
you before the face of the men then living, taught 
dilligently and thoroughly the word of truth ; who, 
being absent, wrote letters to you." 

Ignatius, Epist. ad Ephesias, (c. 12). " The fel- 
low-ministers of sanctified Paul, who in every letter 
maketh mention of you in Christ Jesus." 

Epist. to the Phil, (c. 5), " Fleeing for a refuge to 
the gospel, as to the flesh of Jesus, and to the apos- 
tles as to the presbytery of the church ; we love 
likewise the prophets, for they also announce the 
gospel." 

The above include all the important citations of 
the N. T. writings, by the Apostolic Fathers, and 
the reader will readily see how meagre the list is. 
That Paul's writings were then in existence, is 
proven, and at the same time is shown the estima- 
tion in which they were held, merely the writings 
of a man who could not be present in person to 
and speah to the people, — an every day shift, grow- 
ing out of the necessities of the case. No intima- 
tion is herein contained that Paul wrote by divine 
command, or under any superior pressure of the 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 25 

divine efflatus. These epistles are a convenience, 
nothino^ more. 

" Evident allusions to tlie apostolic Epistles are 
more frequent," (De Wette, vol. 1, p. 50). 

Thus Clement of Rome, (1 Ep. to the Cor. c. 85), 
" Putting away from themselves all unrighteous- 
ness and iniquity, covetousness, strife, evil manners 
and fraud, whispering, calumny, hatred of God, 
haughtiness and pride, vain glory and ambition ; 
they who do these things are haters of God, and not 
only they who do them, but those who approve of 
them." Compare this with Romans, 1, 29 — 32. 

Polycarp Ep. to Philippians, (c. 6), " Neither 
fornicators nor efiiminate, nor abusers of themselves 
with mankind, shall inherit the kingdom of God." 
(See the same in 1 Cor. 6 : 9). 

Polycarp, Clement of Rome, Ignatius and Bar- 
nabas, refer to the gospels but in a very vague and 
changing manner, never quoting them, but using 
their language and inculcating the same precepts as 
those contained in the evangelical books, yet they 
seem to speak independently of the books, and, in 
their own language, endorse and enforce the pre- 
cepts and admonitions of Christ. 

Clement, in two instances, and Barnabas in one, 
are the only exceptions to the general rule. 

Thus Barnabas, (Ep. c. 4), "Let us therefore take 
heed, lest, as it is written, many of us shall be found 
called but few chosen." 

'' Another scripture says, ' I am not come to call 
3 



26 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

the righteous but sinners,' " (Clement Ep. 2). Again, 
(chap. 10), " For the Lord says in the gospel, ' If you 
have not kept the little, who shall give you the 
great ?' I say to you he that is faithful in the least, 
is faithful also in much." Compare Luke 16 : 11, 12. 

These are the only passages in the writings of the 
Apostolical Fathers that pretend to be quotations 
from the gospels. 

Frequent quotations are made from the Apo- 
cryphal gospels, and if the fact has any signifi- 
cance at all, it is that these five Fathers considered 
the Apocryphal writings as equal in value to the 
others. 

Clement of Eome and Clement of Alexandria, 
Ignatius and Jerome, all use the Apocryphal gos- 
pels in the same way. Jerome says in his epistle to 
theSmyrnians, "For when the apostles thought him 
a spirit, — or, according to the gospel which the 
Nazarenes call that of " the Hebrews," an incoporeal 
demon, — he said unto them, * Why are ye trou- 
bled ?' " etc. Ignatius Ep. to the Smyrnians, "And 
when he came to the companions of Peter, he said 
to th^ra ' Take, touch me, and see that I am not a 
bodiless demon ;' and immediately they touched 
him and believed." 

The church Fathers of the second century were 
twelve in number. These refer to the writings of 
the New Testament in various ways, and under dif- 
ferent titles. Justin Martyr, who died, A. D. 166, 
speaks thus of them, " For the apostles, in the me- 
moirs composed by them, which are called gospels, 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 27 

have thus informed us," etc. " And the memoirs by 
the apostles, or the writino^s of the prophets, were 
read," etc., (Apol. 1 c. Gd, p. 83, — cited by De 
Wette). 

Tatian, who died, A. B. 176, according to Lard- 
ner, accepted some of the epistles of Paul and re- 
jected others, (Lardner, vol. 2, ch. 13, p. 147. 

Athenagorus, died, A. D. 180. He quotes Paul 
in 1 Cor. 15 : 68, but, according to Lardner, his ci- 
tation of passages from the gospels proves nothing. 
See Lardner, vol. 2, c. 18, p. 193. 

Theophilus wroteabout A.D.180. He mentions the 
scripture in general, and the gospels in particular. 
He says, " The evangelical voice teaches us more 
expressly, where it says of chastity, ' He that look- 
eth upon a woman to lust after her, hath committed 
adultery already with her.' " 

It is not certain whether Theophilus used the 
Revelation ; Eusebius, says, " There are three books 
containing the elements of faith, addressed to An- 
, tolycus, which are ascribed to Theophilus, whom 
we have mentioned as bishop of Antioch. Another, 
also, which has the title, " Against the heresy of 
Hermogenes,' in which he makes use of testimony 
from the Revelation of John^ besides certain other 
catechetical works." 

Here there is room for a doubt that Theophilus 
wrote the books referred to, and, even admitting he 
did, their acknowledged argumentative character 
would still leave us in doubt as to whether he ac- 
cepted the Revelation as canonical. 



28 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

It is known that men, in argument, use all avail- 
able evidences, strong and weak, and hence, as pas- 
sages might occur in the Revelation that favored 
his position, he might have used them simply for 
what they were worth in evidence, as he certainly 
must have done with those from the " catachetical 
works" referred to. Consequently, coupled as they 
are with those known not to be of inspiration, and 
hence of no higher than human authority, we may 
safely consider those from Eevelation to have been 
held in the same light, since, in the time of this wri- 
ter, no one had called the Booh of Revelation canon- 
ical. 

The last I shall mention of the writers among 
the Fathers of this centnry, is Dionysius, bishop of 
Corinth, who died A. D. 170. He calls the Chris- 
tian writings, " The scriptures of the Lord," (De 
Wette, vol. 1, p. 58. — See also Eusebius Eccl. Hist., 
b.4 ch. 23, and Lardner, vol. 2, ch. 12, p. 144). 

The above citations, and extracts are entirely in- 
sufficient, in point of evidence, to base a belief upon, 
that their authors had, or believed in, any canon of 
the New Testament whatever as having been settled 
by divine authority. The whole evidence shows 
quite the contrary. The fact must not be lost sight 
of, that, in all their quotations, they never once in- 
timate to their readers that they are quoting from 
God's word. Nearer as they are to the real date of 
those writings, which date no man knows — and 
hence, better prepared to judge of their character 
than any at this day, they were far more modest in 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 29 

their claims for them than the D. D's of the present 
time, or the men of little learning, with which the 
pulpits of Christendom swarm. Give these writings 
all the credit that is their due, but why set up a 
claim for tbem that they do not make for themselves, 
which would, seventeen centuries ago, have made 
their earliest expounders blush ? 

Unsuccessful in our search for a settled canon in 
the first and second centuries, we enter upon the 
third, and renew our efforts, but, with a forlorn 
hope of better success. The voice of the Divine 
Oracle has been silent for a century, and its last ac- 
cent died away e'er it had told poor benighted man 
what had, and what had not, been its real teachings. 
It had planted the wheat, up had sprung the tares, 
greatly in excess of the genuine grain, man looked 
on in doubt as to which was wheat and which tares 
— they closely resemble each other, root, stalk, blade, 
no observable difference, and no one to decide which 
was which, when the third century is ushered in. 
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are certainly gen- 
uine. That's refreshing truly. Thirteen Pauline 
Epistles are genuine, and we take courage. Then 
follow the Acts of the Apostles, 'and so far we are 
satisfied. But now we see the three brightest lights 
of the day, unitedly throwing a shade of doubt on 
sundry books, that, at the present time, are called 
as canonical and divinely inspired as any we have 
above enumerated. While these three lights, viz., 
Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria and Turtullian, 
accept the First Epistle of Peter and John, they uni- 



30 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

tedly reject the second Epistle of Peter and tlie 
second and third of John, but all accept the Apoca- 
lypse, while James and Jude are both excluded. 
But there are differences among: those which we 
must not omit to notice. The epistle of Philemon 
they are not agreed upon. 

" However, their is a difference among them in 
respect to the Epistle to Philemon, which Irenseus 
and Clement do not quote, though it is probable 
they were acquainted with it," (De Wette vol. 1, p. 
60). " Clement receives the Epistle to the Hebrews 
but Irenaeus and TurtuUiao do not," (Ibid vol. 1. 
p. 60). See also Euse. Eccl. Hist. B. 6, c. 14. 

" Irenaeus, alone, quotes the second Epistle of 
John, Clement and TurtuUian quote Jude, but Ire- 
naeus does not mention him. 

Clement quotes the apocryphal books, for exam- 
ple, the " Gospel according to the Egyptians." See 
(Lardner vol. 2, p. 245.) 

" The Fathers agree, likewise, in the use of two 
collections. The one, called the " Evangile," con- 
tained in the four gospels. The other, called the 
"Apostle," contained the epistles of Paul and the 
others, which were' already united together under a 
common name," (De Wette, vol. 1, pp. 61 and 62). 
See also Clement in his Miscellaneous works vol. 
3, p. 455). 

The old and the new Syriao versions differed, 
the new containing the epistle to the Hebrews, and 
that of James, which the old did not; and neither 
contained the Apocalypse ; and, with regard to the 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 31 

last mentioned, if tlie opinions of Gains and Diony- 
sius, as expressed in the quotation of thera by 
Ease. Ecc]. Hist. B. 3, c. 28, are well founded, 
there is good reason to believe that John never had 
any hand in writing that book at all. Thus Caius, 
"But Cerinthus, by means of revelations which 
he pretended were written by a great Apostle, also 
falsely pretended to wonderful things, as if they 
were showed him by Angels, asserting that after the 
resurrection, there would be an earthly kingdom of 
Christ, and that the flesh, i. e. men again inhabiting 
Jerusalem, would be subject to desires and plea- 
sures. Being also an enemy to the divine Scriptures, 
with a view to deceive men, he said that there 
would be a space of a thousand years for celebrat- 
ing nuptial festivals." This sounds very much 
like the thousand years spoken of in Revelation, in 
which there shall be one grand round of uninter- 
rupted pleasure, and the great marriage, therein 
spoken of in the glowing terms of voluptuous poesy. 
But Dionysius thows the whole book entirely and 
forever out of the canon, if the opinion on the part 
of one capable of judging, can possibly do so. His 
words are these, quoted by Eusebius in the chapter 
refered to above. "But it is highly probable that 
Cerinthus, the same that established the heresy 
that bears his name, designedly affixed the name 
(of John) to his own forgery. For one of the doc- 
trines that he taught, was, that Christ would have 
an earthly kingdom. And as he was a voluptu- 
ary, and altogether sensual, he conjectured that it 



32 BIBLE IN" THE BALANCE. 

would consist in those things that he craved in the 
gratification of appetite and lust, i. e. in eating, 
drinking and marrying, or in such things whereby 
he supposed the sensual pleasures might be pre- 
sented in a more decent expression ; viz., in festi- 
vals, sacrifices and the slaying of victims." Here, 
then, we have, at last, a clue to the real origin of 
the Apocalypse, supposed to have been composed 
by John while in the spirit," on sea beaten Patmos, 
" on the Lords day." 

Putting together the statements and conclusions 
emergent from them, of these two great men, 
Caius, bishop of Rome, and Dionysius, bishop of 
Alexandria, both near the time of the Cerinthean 
heresy, in connection with which the apocalypse 
made its first appearance, what is left as ground 
for a reasonable doubt, that it was gotten up in the 
manner, and for the purposes suggested above. 
Thus, then, closes the third century, and yet no 
N. T. canon as we now have it. One epistle of 
Peter, two of John, James, Jude, Hebrews and 
Revelation are still in dispute, and wanting to com- 
plete the present collection. Though different 
ones admit them, still there are no two that agree 
upon them all; some admit one, others another, but 
no one admits them all, and no two agree upon any 
list or catalogue of the canonical books of the N. T. 
whatever. 

For two hundred years, according to admitted 
authority, the voice of inspiration has been silent, and 
and yet no one has been able to tell what things 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 33 

were, and what were not, spoken by it, and jet, men, 
at this late day, pretend to tell us things respecting 
the New Testament records, that the first expound- 
ers thereof knew nothing about. 

As a still further evidence of the fact stated above, 
let the voice of Origin be heard. This eminent light 
in the church lived in the third century, and, from 
his learning and deep devotion to the church, high- 
er authority cannot be cited. 

A settled canon, in his time, were a fact of which 
he could not have been ignorant. His testimony, 
then must forever settle the vexed question, so far 
as this century is concerned. But what is the 
ground occupied by this prince of scholars, histo- 
rians and theologians ? Precisely the same as that 
occupied by those previously mentioned. While 
he recognizes the scriptures as divinely inspired, 
still, he is in doubt as to some of the books of the 
New Testament, his doubts being stronger about 
some than others. " These doubts rest upon The 
Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistle of James, the 
second Epistle of Peter, the second and third of 
John, and the Epistle of Jude," (De Wette vol. 1 pp. 
69 and 70.) 

That the reader may see clearly the true posi- 
tion of Origin on the canon, the following quotation 
from his writings, given by Eusebius ; (Eccel. Hist, 
b. 6, ch. 25), is subjoined in fulL "But he, being 
well fitted to be a minister of the New Testament, 
Paul, I mean, a minister not of the letter but of the 
spirit; who, after spreading the gospel from Jeru- 



34 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

salem and the country around as far as Illyricum, 
did not even write to all the churches to which he 
preached, but even to those to whom he did write, 
he only sent a few lines. But Peter, upon whom 
the church of Christ is built, against which the 
gates of hell shall not prevail, has left one Epistle 
•undisputed. Suppose, also, the second was left by 
him, for on this there is some doubt. What shall 
we say of him who reclined on the breast of Jesus? 
I mean John, who has left one gospel, in which he 
confesses he could write so many that the whole 
world could not contain them. He also wrote the 
Apocalypse, commanded as he was to conceal, and 
not to write the voices of the seven thunders. He 
also has left an epistle consisting of a very few 
lines ; suppose also that a second and a third is 
from him, for not all agree that they are genuine, 
but both together do not contain a hundred lines. 
The style of the Epistle with the title, ' To the 
Hebrews,' has not that vulgarity of diction which 
belongs to the apostle, who confesses that he 
is but common in speech, that is in his phraseology. 
But that this epistle is more pure Greek in the 
composition of its phrases, every one will confess 
who is able to discern the difference of style. 
Again, it will be obvious that the ideas of the epis- 
tle are admirable, and not inferior to any of the 
books acknowledged to be apostolic. Every one 
will confess the truth of this who attentively reads 
the apostles writings. 

"Bat, I would say that the thoughts are the apos- 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 35 

ties, but the diction and phraseology belong to some 
one who has recorded what the apostle said, and 
as one who noted down at his leisure what his mas- 
ter dictated. If, then, any church considers this 
epistle as coming from Paul, let it be commended 
for this, for neither did the ancient men deliver it 
as such without cause. But who it was that really 
wrote the epistle, Ood only hnows. The account, 
however, that has been current before us is, ac- 
cording to some, that Clement who was bishop of 
Rome, wrote the epistle ; according to others, that 
it was written by Luke, who wrote the gospel and 
the Acts. But let this suffice on these subjects." 

One more quotation, from Eusebius himself, and 
we are done with this department of our subject. 
"And then among the first must be placed the holy 
quaternian of the gospels ; then, there follows the 
book of the "Acts of the Apostles ; " after this must 
be mentioned the epistles of Paul, which are fol- 
lowed by the acknowledged first espistle of John, 
as also the first of Peter, to be admitted in like 
manner. After these, are to be placed, if thought 
proper, the revelation of John, concerning which 
we shall offer the different opinions in due time. 
These then are acknowledged as genuine. Among 
the disputed books, although they are well known 
and approved by many, is reputed, that called the 
Epistle of James and Jude. Also the Second Epistle 
of Peter and the Second and Third of John. Among 
the spurious, must be numbered both the books 
called "The Acts of Paul ; " and that called "Pastor," 



86 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

and "The Eevelation of Peter." Besides these the 
books called "The Epistle of Barnabas," and what are 
called "The Institutions of the Apostles." Moreover 
as I said before, if it should seem right, The Reve- 
lation of John. But there are also some, who num- 
ber among these the gospel according to the Hebrews, 
with which those of the Hebrews who have received 
Christ are particularly delighted." (Euse. Eccl. Hist, 
b. 2, c, 25.) 

I cannot close this chapter, on the canons of the 
New Testament, without giving expression to a few 
reflections bj way of summing up. Of the courageous 
ten who set out with me in this investigation, nine 
were sanguine in the belief, that overwhelming 
evidence would at once appear, that God had not 
only inspired his human oracles with his holy word, 
but at the same time so rendered that inspiration 
conspicuous above all human productions, that the 
fool could never be at loss in recognizing it. The 
miraculous manner of its production was proof in 
itself that tlie hand of the Almighty was directing 
the events, and that no doubt could rest on the 
mind of the observer and reader, as to the genuine- 
ness of the books produced, from the time of their 
first appearance. Such we find has not been the 
case. During the first century a few men preached, 
and doubtless wrote, but their writings were not 
collected and compiled, nor did the writers manifest 
any anxiety or desire that they should be. Cer- 
tain it is, they never compiled and published them 
themselves, nor have we the remotest intimation 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. S7 

tliat they directed others to do so for them. The 
writers of the gospels may have retained their own 
originals, or copies of them, but this is scarcely 
supposable, since, had they done so, the duplicate 
copies would have preserved the original from cor- 
ruption, and, vice versa. But the acknowledged 
corruption of the text is proof positive that no such 
safeguard was thrown around it. Hence whatever 
may have been their original purity of inspiration, 
both God and their earthly authors, left them to the 
mutilations and perversions of interested transcribers 
and translators, in too many instances exponents of 
bigotry and ignorance combined, to say nothing of 
the ever varying signification of words in the 
changing languages of earth. Of the epistolary 
portions, we may speak in positive terms. These 
we know were mere letters to congregations of con- 
verts, but recently from the ranks of paganism, 
wayward, untutored and unlettered, dissolute, vul- 
gar and impure in their lives and conversation; if 
we may believe the reports that Paul '■'■partly be- 
lieved," and were doubtless but too well founded, 
and I leave the reader to judge how much of 
canonical importance the writers themselves could 
have attached to them. Faint mention, in the latter 
part of the first, and early part of the second century, 
is made of them by the fathers of the times, and few 
and brief extracts are made from them, which in- 
crease as time wears on through the second century, 
and rival writings, calling for public favor, begin to 
4 



88 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

dim the prospects of any authentic canon. We 
have looked in vain for Caiusand Dionysius, in the 
third century, to tell us what was God's canon of 
truth, who, if any men of this age could have an- 
swered, they could, but they are in doubt, while 
Origin of the same century, in the same perplexity 
and uncertainty as the others, hands us over to the 
great Eusebius, who, with no more light than his 
predecessors, astounds us with the flat acknowledg- 
ment, that in the first half of the fourth century, 
there is no canon, and both he, and the great Origin, 
in speaking of the disputed and spurious books, 
treat the whole matter as though, in their estimation, 
it was of little or no vital importance to the world 
or the church, what were and what were not re- 
ceived and read as the canonical scriptures. 



CHAPTER III. 

Yersions of the Old Testament. 

To a thorough criticism of the Bible, the old 
versions are of the utmost importance, showing, as 
they do, the many tamperings with the text, and 
how one version has been made from another, and, 
while all precaution possible might have been used 
to preserve parity where it existed, and restore it 
where lost, still, the disagreement, the biblical in- 
vestigator, meets with at almost every step in 
comparing these versions, is proof positive how 
fruitless has been the effort. The direct versions, 
that is those directly from the Hebrew and Chaldee 
in which the Old Testament was originally written, 
are, " 1. The Septuagint or Alexandrian version, 
2 The version of Aquila, 3. That of Symmachus, 
4. That of Theodotion in part, 5, 6, and 7. Three 
anonymous Greek versions, 8. The Greek version 
in St. Marks library at Venice, 9. The Samaritan 
Pentateuch, 10. The Samaritan version of the Pen- 
tateuch, 11. The several Chaldee pharaphrases, 
12. The Syriao version in the Polyglot, 13. Some 
books of the Arabic version in the Polyglots, 14. 
The Arabic which follows the Samaritan Penta- 
teuch, 15. The 'Arabs Erponii' on the five books 
of Moses, 16. The modern Arabic of Saadias Ben 
Levi Askenoth, 17. The Hebrew version of the 



40 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

Chaldee passages, 18. Jerome's Latin version from 
the Hebrew. The indirect versions are as follows. 
From the Septuagint, 1. Theodotion's version in 
part, 2. The greater part of the Arabic in the Poly- 
glots, 8. An unprinted Arabic version of the Pen- 
tateuch in the library of the Medici, 4, The Etheo- 
pic, 5. The Coptic, 6. The Armenean, 7. Several : — 
1. A Syriac Hexapla, 2. The versio figurata, 8. 
Perhaps the Philoxonimi, 4. The version of Mar 
Abba, 5. The version of Jacob of Edessa, 6. That 
of Thomas of Heraclia, 7. The Greek in Ephraim 
Cyrus, 8. That of Simeon from the cloister of St. 
Licinius, 9. The version of Karkaphonsis : — 8. The 
Itala, 9. The Grorgian version, 10. The Anglo- 
Saxon. 

"From the Syriac Peshito : — 1. The Arabic 
version of the Psalms printed in a cloister on 
Mount Lebanon, 1610, 2. The Arabic version 
of Job and the Chronicals in the Polyglots, 8. 
The Arabic Psalter in the British Museum, 4. A 
Pentateuch by Abulfaradash Abdallah Ben Alta- 
yib, 5. A Syriac Hexapla of Hamuth, Ben Lenan, 
6. Chaldee version of Solomons Proverbs. 

" From St. Jerome's version, A Syrkc transla- 
tion ; From the Coptic, an Arabic translation, and 
from the Yulgate several Arabic translations," (De 
Wette, vol. 1, p. 132-135 — Note). Here we have 
thirty-seven difi'erent versions, and no two of them 
so nearly agree, as to leave them clear of the charge 
of error and corruption. First, in treating of these, 
the Septuagint, or Alexandrian version, must claim 



BIBLE IN THE BALAXCE. 41 

attention. The opinion generally prevails, that 
this famous version, from which have descended 
nearly, if not all, versions of modern times, except 
the vLilgate of St. Jerome, was. made by Alexan- 
drian Jews, 185 B. 0. This opinion, incorrect as it 
is, is nevertheless so strong and so old and universal, 
that it may take more space to portray facts to dis- 
pel it, than can well be spared in the scanty limits 
of the present work. 

It has been stated in a previous chapter, that 
evidence was wanting to prove that there ever was 
a council of seventy, convened at Alexandria, for 
the purpose of translating the Old Testament from 
the Hebrew into the Greek lanu^uas^e. Amonor 
those who hold to the belief of such a coun- 
cil, may be mentioned Archbishop Usher, Yossius, 
and others of theological and historical note. 
These base their conclusions upon the statements of 
Aristeus, who purports to be an Alexandrian Jew. 
This story might do very well, though extravagant 
and improbable, were it not more than matched by 
a similar one told by the Samaritans, touching the 
translation of the Pentateuch into the Greek, in 
which only their nation succeeded in giving a cor- 
rect translation, while the Jews proper, failed, and 
their translation was rejected by Ptolomy on that ac- 
count. The letter of Aristeus, containing his story, 
is now believed by the best critics, to be spurious, 
and, certainly, the story bears the impress of for- 
gery upon the very face of it. But false as it must 



42 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

appear, it has been quoted by Joseph us, and circu- 
lated more widely by later writers. 

This is the story : " Demetrius Phalerius, the 
keeper of the Alexandrian library, wished to make 
a collection of all the books in the world, and men- 
tioned the Jewish works to king Ptolemy, who 
promised to write to the high priest at Jerusalem 
for interpreters to translate those books into the 
Greek tongue. Aristeus happened to be present, 
and advised the king to set free the large number 
of Hebrews then held as slaves in his dominions. 
He did this, and sent a messenger to Eleazar, the 
high priest, at Jerusalem, for six learned men out 
of each tribe, to serve as translators of the Law. 
A letter and costly presents were sent. Aristeus, 
the pretended writer of the letter, and Andreas are 
sent as messengers. Eleazar returned a courteous 
answer, and sent the seventy-two translators re- 
quested ; * all picked men.' Ptolemy was much 
rejoiced to see them. He entertained them seven 
days at his own table in a most splendid manner, 
and asked them seventy-two questions respecting 
the kingly ofGice and the best way of governing a 
state. To all these queries, the individuals re- 
turned the most satisfactory replies. Demetrius then 
conducted them to a quiet place on the island of 
Pharos, where they commenced their work ; and in 
seventy-two days the whole was completed. It was 
copied carefally by Demetrius himself, and read 
to a large audience, who stood and listened, out of 
respect to the sacred books ; a curse was then pro- 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 43 

nounced upon all who should add to or diminish it. 
Ptolemy dismissed the translators with praises and 
rewards. (See Note by Theodore Parker, in De 
TVette, vol, 1, pp. 136 and 137). 

Although this story is extravagant enough, to 
elicit, at sight, a philosophic doubt of its truthful- 
ness, still, the extravagance weighs little, in com- 
parison with one simple fact that stamps upon it 
absolute falsehood. As the story goes, six trans- 
lators were selected from each tribe, making the 
number seventy-two instead of seventy, which the 
version claims as members of the council. Again, 
the time of the translation is fixed at 185 B. C. 
Ten tribes revolted some 970 B. C, and from that 
time, the Palestine Jews represented only two 
tribes. It is obvious, therefore, that six from each 
of the twelve tribes, could not have been sent to 
Demetrius, since ten tribes had disappeared many 
ages before. 

Improbable and impossible as the story is in it- 
self, Justin Martyr aguments the enormity of the 
tale, by telling us that the seventy-two were con- 
fined in as many different cells, and though hav- 
ing no intercourse, yet each translated the whole 
book in. just the same words and letters. The false 
chasing of a "fairy tale" would be an appropriate 
sitting for a story like this. Epiphanius, while he 
relieves us of one half the cells, leaving the number 
thirty-six, the remains of which, he says, were 
visible in his time, — still does not relieve the mind, 
by bringing the account within the possibility of 



44 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

being believed. (See Note and citation from Jastin 
Martyr in Be Wette, vol. 1, p. 137). 

Why should Josephus, a Palestine Jew, cite this 
as, " authentic and well known," while Phiio, an 
Alexandrian Jew, does not mention it, and appears 
to have known nothing of it? Eusebius is in no 
way a relief to us, for he makes the translation into 
Grreek in part, he/ore the time of Demetrius Phalerius 
and part m his time, he — Demetrius — taking charge 
of the whole matter. 

Irenseus tell us, as quoted by Euse. Eccl. Hist. b. 
5, c. 8, " For before the Eomans established their 
empire, while yet the Macedonians held possession 
of Asia, Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, being ambi- 
tious to adorn the library established by him in 
Alexandria, with the works of all men, as many as 
were worthy of being studied, requested of the in- 
habitants of Jerusalem, to have their works trans- 
lated into the Greek ; but as they were yet subject 
to the Macedonians, they sent seventy of their elders 
that were best skilled in the scriptures, and in both 
languages, to Ptolemy, and thus Providence favored 
his design. But, as he wished them to make the 
attempt separately, and apprehensive lest, by con- 
cert, they might conceal the truth of the Scriptures 
by their interpretation, therefore, separating them 
from one another, he commanded them all to write 
the same translation. And this he did in all the 
books. Assembleng, therefore, in the same place, 
in the presence of Plotemy, and each of them com- 
paring their respective versions, God was glorified 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 45 

and tlie Scriptures were recognized as truly divine, 
as all of them rendered the same thins^s in the verv 
same expressions, and the same words, from the be- 
ginning to the end. So that the Gentiles present 
knew that the Scriptures were translated by a 
divine inspiration. Neither was it anything ex- 
traordinary that God should have done this, who, 
indeed, in the captivity of the people under Ne- 
buchadnezzar, when the scriptures had been de- 
stroyed, and the Jews returned to their country after 
seventy years, subsequently, in the times of Arta- 
xerxes king of the Persians, he inspired Esdras, the 
priest of the tribe of Levi, to compose anew all the 
discourses of the ancient prophets, and to restore to 
the people the laws given by Moses." Nothing the 
writer can here say, will repress a doubt in the 
mind of the candid reader, whether ignorance, cre- 
dulity, or downright imposition prevailed with Ire- 
nseus when he penned the above, from whatever 
source he may have obtained it. Of course there is 
nothing to sustain statements of this kind, and for 
the credence they have received, we can only refer 
to the ignorance, superstition, and general credulity 
of the times. Look for the real evidence of such an 
extraordinary mental phenomenon, and it rests on 
mere tradition, nothing more substantial. 

Added to the above fabulous accounts of the 
septuagint version, the Samaritans have their own 
statement, but it does not agree with any of the 
others. Theirs, in Abul Phatach's Samaritan 
Chronical respecting the Alexandrian version, is 



4:Q BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

this: " In the tenth year of his reign, Ptolemy Phila- 
clelphus directed his attention to the contradictions 
between the Samaritans and the Jews, respecting 
the law; for the Samaritans refused to receive any 
of the pretended writings of the prophets, except the 
law. To inform himself on this point, the king 
sent for the Jews and the Samaritans, and desired 
to hear the elders of both parties in this controversy. 
Osar came from Alexandria on part of the Jews, 
Aaron on the part of the Samaritans, each attended 
by several assistants. Quarters were assigned 
them, with directions to remain separate from one 
another; a Greek servant was appointed to each 
person, to write down the expected translation. In 
this way the Samaritans translated the law and 
the other books. 

" Ptolemy examined it, and was satisfied that the 
law, as the Samaritans possesed it, contained matter 
not to be found in the Jewish copy, and that their text 
was purer than that of the Jews." The Samaritans 
say the world was darkened for three days after the 
version was made. Whatever element of truth 
there may be in all these extravagant and contra- 
dictory statements regarding the version under con- 
sideration, the reader cannot arise from their perusal 
without the feeling, that, after all, there is no real 
evidence that any such version was ever made. 
These conflicting statements of Jews and Samaritans, 
exhibit more the spirit of religious bitterness and 
jealousy, together with national pride, (in which 
truth and sincerity are lost sight of,) than a display 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 47 

of the wisdom and power of an infinite God, in so 
mysterious and improbable a transaction. A Pales- 
tine Jew, doubtless, invented the one story, and, to 
match, or excel it, a Samaritan Jew invented the 
other, and each, for the exaltation of his own nation. 
This judgment involves no lack of charity toward 
either the Jews or Samaritans, since both parties 
exhibit the almost universal tendency of the human 
mind under such circumstances. 

Truly then, may it be, said, that the famous 
Alexandrian, or Septuagint version, can claim no 
higher or more reliable paternity, than the fabulous 
statements and inventions of religious partisans in 
theological strife and national animosity. From 
this version has come, in regular genealogical suc- 
cession, our present English version, and not from 
the original Hebrew. That it was a corruption, and 
that, in proof that the Hellenistic Jews, or those 
that used the Greek language, only used it while it 
served a certain purpose, and abandoned it when 
their religious interests so dictated, we have only to 
refer to the controversies between the Jews and the 
Christians during the second century A. C. It 
would seem, that the christians, in controversy with 
the Jews, appealed to this version as their great 
authority, which led the Palestine Jews to examine 
more closely the text, that they, up to this time, 
had regarded as pure as the Hebrew itself and as 
valuable ; but on a more critical comparison, va- 
rious additions and alterations became so appa- 
rent, as to lead them to reject it, which example 



48 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

was speedily followed by the Hellenistic Jews. This 
return to the Hebrew put the Christians at fault, 
for, for two or three centuries A. C. few Christians 
were acquainted with the Hebrew, which fact gave 
the Jews a decided advantage, if they could prove 
thus the incorrectness of the Septuagint translation* 

The next version we come to notice, is that of 
Aquila, a Jewish proselyte of Sinope, in the early 
part of the second century. This was very literal, 
and faithful, made expressly for the Jews, and pre- 
fered, by them, to the Septuagint, See (De Wette, 
vol. 1, pp. 151, 152). Irenseus cites it frequently in 
his books against heresies in A. D., 176 and 177. The 
Jews adopted it to the exclusion of the Septuagint, 
but Irenaeus wrote in 178 against the heresies the 
Ebionites derived from it. Epiphanius condemns 
it on account of its polemic character, and says 
"that, though he understood the Hebrew very well, 
he undertook the work with no good design, but 
that he might pervert some passages of Scripture. 
He attacked the Septuagint, that he might render, 
in a different way, the testimony of the Scriptures 
respecting Christ ; and, by this means, he sought 
an apology for his absurd conduct," (De Wette,vol. 
1, p. 154). 

Jerome commends it. " When I compare Aqui- 
la's Edition with the Hebrew volumes, I do not find 
that the synagogue has changed anything through 
hatred to Christ, and I will gladly confess, that I 
find more that tends to confirm our faith," (Ep. 24 
ad Marcellum). 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 49 

" Theodotion did little more than revise the 
version of the Seventy," (De Wette, vol. 1, p. 137). 
This version was made in the fore part of the se- 
cond century. 

The version of Symmachus is uncertain as to its 
date, but, probably, not far from 130 A. C. "Sym- 
machus endeavored to obtain a pure Greek style, 
and translated more freely," (De Wette, vol. 1, p. 
160). The little reliance that can be placed in this 
version, will be apparent from the fact, that, accord- 
ing to Epiphanius, he was a Samaritan, but de- 
siring political honors, which were denied him by 
his own countrymen, he, in disgust, went over to 
the Jews, and out of hatred to the Samaritans, made 
a new version of the Old Testament. The above 
story of Epiphanius may not be true, but, if it be, 
the doubt expressed above as to its reliability ig 
certainly legitimate. One thing is certain ; Sym- 
machus was a half Jew, or Ebionite. Both Jerome 
and Eusebius concur in this. Whether he wrote 
before or after Theodotion is uncertain. Epiphanius 
says he wrote before, but Jerome says, " Symma- 
chus made use of Theodotion." Irenaeus never 
mentions this version, but Justin Martyr, according 
to Stroth, often cited it. The style is said to be so 
purely Greek, that it was sometimes called "the 
perspicuous, manifest, and admissible version." 
But it differed materially from the version of "the 
Seventy," as it is erroneously called, yet, in this dis- 
agreement, coinciding with the two preceding ver- 
5 



50 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

sions, there is good reason to believe it was 
a tolerably correct version, and hence Origin gives 
it a place in his Hexapla. With all due credit to 
the opinions of Origin, Justin Martyr and others, 
when the sincere student is searching here for a 
true version, and finds from the purity of its Greek 
style, rendering the meaning of Hebrew words 
when their literal translation would impair the 
sense, the evident avoiding of explanations and me- 
taphors, he is thrown into doubt by the story of 
Epiphanius, and vexed by the steady and persistent 
rejection and condemnation of it, by the Samaritan 
Jews. 

The three versions mentioned above, were found 
by Origin in his tour to collect material for his 
Polyglots, or, for ought of interest, the spirit that 
had dictated their writing manifested in them, they 
might have slumbered, till the gathering mists of 
forgetful n ess had enveloped them forever. Besides 
these. Origin discovered three other fragmentary 
versions on the same " literary journey," which are 
called "Quinta, Sexta and Septima, from the place 
this great author gives them in his work on the 
" Bible," (De Wette vol. 1, p. 165.) Little or noth- 
ing is known of these versions beyond their bare 
existence, " the statements of the ancients regarding 
them bearing evident marks of extremest improba- 
bility." (Ibid. vol. I, p. 162.) 

Next in order, comes the famous " Hexapla" of 
Origin. The Alexandrian version became early 
corrupted by the frequent transcriptions to which 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 51 

it was subjected, and, probably, to a greater extent, 
by the liberties exercised by capricious critics. Of 
these corruptions, Origin complains in the following 
language. "But now there is obviously a great 
diversity of the copies, which has arisen, either 
from the negligence of some transcribers, or from 
the boldness of others, — as well as from the diffi- 
culty of correcting what was written, or from 
others still, who added or took away, as they saw 
fit, in making their corrections." (Cited by De 
Wette, vol I, p. 165). 

But Origen is not alone in these complaints. 
Jerome speaks of these corruptions in the following 
terms. " The vulgar edition which is called the 
common^ is different in different places ;" and fur- 
ther, " The ancient and common edition of the 
scriptures is corrupted to suit the time, and place, 
and caprice of the writers," (Ibid, vol 1, p. 165). 

But this corruption seems to have taken place, 
mostly, after the time of Christ, as Philo and Jose- 
ph us appear to have had tolerably correct copies 
of the text. Eichhorn says, that Justin Martyr 
had a very corrupt text, at least, in the minor pro- 
phets. "He found readings which are now contained 
in neither the manuscripts nor the Fathers, nor in 
the editions of the Seventy," (Eichhorn, § 167). 

Origin attempted to amend this text, and, so far 
as possible, restore its purity by comparing it with 
the original Hebrew, and the other Greek texts ex- 
tant in his time. Controversy, however, seems to 
have been one of the leading objects in view in this 



52 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

undertaking, if we may judge from his own state- 
ment in the following passage from his Ep. ad 
Afric. p. 16. " This I say, that I do not weary 
with searching the Hebrew Scriptures and compa- 
ring all our copies with theirs, and noticing the 
differences between them. And if it is not impro- 
per to say so, we have done it according to our 
ability. We have sought for their meaning in all 
the editions, and in all their various readings, that, 
as far as possible, we might be able to interpret the 
Seventy, not, however, that we might seem to pro- 
duce something new, which differed from the ver- 
sion of the church, and thus furnish an excuse for 
those who seek an occasion, and wish to condemn 
the general opinion and to find fault with com- 
mon affairs. We have taken this pains that we 
may not be ignorant of the scriptures, so that, when 
conte-nding with the Jews, we may not urge upon 
them passages not found in their copies, and may 
use in common with them what they contain, even 
if it is not in our books. Our preparaticm in this 
undertaking has been such as even they will not 
despise, nor, as their wont is, will they laugh at the 
believers among the Grentiles, as if they were igno- 
rant of truth as it exists in their writings." 

The result of this investigation and comparison, 
was the " Hexapla," so called from the six versions 
of which it was composed, viz., the four Grreek ver- 
sions of Aquila, Symmachus, the Seventy, and that 
of Theodotion, and two Hebrew versions. These 
were arranged in opposite parallel columns, for 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 53 

for the convenience of the reader, in his comparison 
of the various texts. 

Of this work, Eusehius holds the followins: Ian- 
guage. " Having collected all these versions to- 
gether, and divided them into sentences, and ar- 
ranged them opposite one another in parallel col- 
umns, with the Hebrew text, he left us the present 
copies of the Hexapla as it is called. In a separate 
work called the Tetrapla he collected the edition of 
Aquila Symmachus and Theodotion with that of the 
seventy." (Euse. Eccl. Hist, b. 6, ch. 19). 

This great work was the result of twenty-eight 
years preparation, in which he traveled much in 
the East, where he found six Greek versions — those 
of Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion, with the 
three anonymous versions spoken of above. As 
Origin does not appear to have collected any 
Hebrew manuscripts to aid him in his work, it is 
but fair to oonclude that his only object in the pre- 
paration of the Hexapla was, to revise and correct 
the version of the Seventy instead of restoring the 
Hebrew Original, and thus he placed all subse- 
quent versions that should be made, still further 
Irom the true source of correctness, and the He- 
brew manuscripts were thus untouched, while the 
text of the Seventy, corrected from the four Grreek 
versions — but principally from Theodotion, was 
made the standard of accuracy, and has remained 
so ever since. True, this work was held in high 
estimation by Eusebius, Epiphanius, Jerome and 
others. Still it cannot be claimed to have been a 



54 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

safe guide to the teactiings of the Spirit. Here are 
displayed six different teachings of the Spirit at one 
view — for no two of the six versions agreed in all 
points. However much labor and learning may 
have been spent on the work before us, the fact of 
correcting the Alexandrian text, by comparing it 
with other texts equally corrupt with itself, is preg- 
nant with the conclusion, that, instead of correctness 
being restored and henceforth secured, incorrectness 
was sealed, not only to the Septuagint version, but 
to all others that should descend from it. 

One important fact in regard to the Alexandrian 
version should here be noticed. Of the Hexapla, 
Jerome, as cited by De Wette, vol. I, p. 176, says 
" If you wish to be a true lover of the Seventy, do 
not read those passages marked with asterisks^ but 
remove them from the volumes, that you may prove 
yourself a friend to what is genuine and old. If 
you do this, you will be compelled to condemn the 
libraries of all the churches, for scarcely can one 
be found that does not contain them." Again, as 
cited by the same, vol. I, p. 171, "He did this, also, 
which was a work of great boldness, — he mingled 
Theodotion's version with that of the Seventy, desig- 
nating with asterisks places where something was 
previously wanting, and with obelisks what seemed 
superfluous." These asterisks and obelisks, subse- 
quently, became the fruitful source of renewed cor- 
ruptions of the text of the Seventy. The asterisk 
was taken for the obelisk and ^^vice versa.^^ But 
this was not all. The very arrangement of the dif- 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 00 

ferent versions caused them to be confounded ; Sym- 
machus was mistaken for Aquila, and Aquila for 
Theodotion, and, in the subsequent transcriptions, 
from the positions of the several columns, any one of 
the three might, and too frequently did find way 
into the version of the Seventy, to the exclusion of 
the genuine text. From this corrupt text, the 
citations of the Seventy, by the Fathers who lived 
hefore Origin have been corrected, and thus they 
have been made to cite an author who really lived 
after their own time, and of course one whom they 
never knew. Thus, Philo, who lived long prior to 
the time of Aquila, is made to quote from the version 
of the latter, and Justin Martyr has been corrected 
from interpolated copies of the Seventy. (SeeEich- 
horn as cited by De Wette, vol. I, p. 178). 

^' On account of the unreasonable and careless use 
of Origin's critical work, new corruptions were in 
troduced in the text of the Seventy. For this reason 
Lucian, — who died about 311 A. C. — and Hesychius, 
undertook to make new recensions of the text of this 
version. Their works came into public use, but 
nothing is now left of them, and the accounts of 
them are too imperfect to afford the critic any as- 
sistence." (De Wette vol. I, p. 178). Here we have 
two rescensions of the Alexandrian text, as well as 
the text itself, which were severally prefered and 
used in as many different localities ; the text of 
Origin, (so called) but really, and in fact only a re- 
scension by that author, and taken and adopted in 
place of the real text, used in Palestine, the text of 



56 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

Hesychius in Egypt, and that of Lucian in Constan- 
tinople and vicinity. 

Thus it appears, that, in the time of Jerome no 
less than three versions of the Septuagint were 
in existence, and acknowledged as genuine, by the 
christians in as many of the great religious centers 
of the christian world. Palestine will have Origin's 
version of the Hexapla, and no other. To the 
Palestine christians all other versions are spurious 
and unauthorized. Hesychius is in repute in Egypt 
and all others are excluded ; while at Constantinople, 
a community of equal intelligence and perhaps 
greater, rejecting the version of Hesychius and that 
of the "Seventy," the churches cling to the later 
version of Lucian. 

From the foregoing history of the Alexandrian, 
and the preceding versions, as well as the two later 
ones mentioned, the fact, that there is not a pure 
version of the Old Testament in existence, cannot 
be doubted. If, then, the Greek of the Old Testa- 
ment has been so corrupted and mutilated in the 
first two centuries, can we expect that the New 
Testament has shared any better fate at the same 
hands? True, the Fathers, in the Greek of the 
New, must have had a purer text, but the same 
liberties must have been, and there is both internal 
and external evidence that they were, taken with 
it, as with the Old Testament. 

The further pursuit of this subject is unnecessary 
to the purposes of the present work, and I spare the 
reader the task of reading the history of the thirty 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 67 

odd, partial and complete versions, that remain as 
outgjrowths of those mentioned, in various lanfyuao:e3 
and dialects. It may be interesting, however, to 
have a brief summary of them given in this connec- 
tion without comment. 

The descendents of the Septuagint are : 1. The 
Old Latin versioQ, and Jerome's recension of it. 2. 
The versions made indirectly into the Syriac. 3. 
The Ethiopian version. 4. The Egyptian version. 
5. The Armenean version. 6. The Georgian or 
Grusinian version. 7. The Sclavic or Sclavonic 
version. 8. Several Arabic versions. 

Next, but not from the Alexandrian, is to be 
noticed the Venetian version which is but a frag- 
ment, containing a few books of the Old Testament. 
The direct Oriental version are : 

I. The Chaldee Paraphrases, or Targums. Of 
these there are, 1. The Targam of Onkelos. 2. The 
Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel. 3. The Targurn 
of the Psudo, Jonathan on the Pentateuch. 4. The 
Jerasalem Targum on the Pentateuch. Of the 
minor Targums may be noticed, one on the books 
of Ruth, Esther, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and 
Canticles, three on the book of Esther alone, one 
on the Psalms, Job and Proverbs, and one on the 
Chronicles. 

II. The Samaritan version of the Pentateuch. 

III. The Syriac Peshito, which means the sim^ple^ 
true. 

lY. The descendents of the Peshito. 
Arabic versions from the Syriac. 



58 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

1. Arabic versions in the London and Paris 
Polyglots. 2. Two versions of the Psalms, one 
printed at Moant Lebanon, the other unprinted. 
2. Arabic Psalter in the British Museum. 8. 
Several Arabic versions of the (Sjriac) Pentateuch, 
some printed and others unprinted. 

y. Arabic versions. 

1. From the Jewish Hebrew text. 1. The 
Pentateuch and Isaiah by Eabbi Saadias Gaon 
A. C, about 925, Style, paraphrastic, agreeing in its 
explanations with the Targums. 2. The Samaritan 
Arabic version of Abu Said. This took the place 
of the Samaritan version of the Pentateuch after the 
extinction of the Samaritan language in the twelfth 
century. 

YI. Persian versions of the Pentateuch. 

Lastly in this catalogue is the famous Latin Yul- 
gate by Jerome directly from the Hebrew, and its 
descendents, the Anglo Saxon and the Arabic, and 
Persian Translations from it. This closes the list 
of versions direct and indirect of the Old and ISTew 
Testaments of ancient date. 

From the foregoing history of the canons and 
versions of the Old and New Testaments, a few 
startling facts become prominent to the mind of the 
reflective reader. That there was a Jewish canon, 
during the life time of that nation, it would be ab- 
surd to believe, since the most conflicting opinions 
are everywhere expressed as to what books were 
canonical and what were not ; and, that finally, 
those were decided upon and accepted which had 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 59 

obtained the greatest public favor in the cburcbes, 
but this was done by christians and not Jews. 
Again, the great Alexandrian council, that all the 
christian world believes translated the Hebrew 
Scriptures into the Greek language, is a myth, and 
the whole history rests on the most clumsily inven- 
ted fables of extravagant doings of God and men, 
unsustained by even a possibility, and violating a 
historical date, by causing to figure in that council 
sixty Jews, representatives often tribes, that had dis- 
appeared six hundred years before. The Samaritan 
story of the same translation into Greek from their 
version, though differing from the former, is still, too 
extravagant to be trustworthy, and, taken together, 
they give more evidence of national pride and sec- 
tarian hatred, than of the superintending care of an 
all wise and benevolent God in preserving his word 
for the use of his future churches. Probably this 
version was acknowledged by a council of seventy, 
but that council was only the Jewish Sanhedrim of 
Alexandria, and the acknowledgement was made 
only after the books had been long used, and adop- 
.ted as canonical, by common consent of the Alex- 
andrian Jews. This version then as the root from 
which has sprung our present English version of 
the Old Testament, is subject to the following 
criticism. After ages of corruption. Origin attempts 
its correction ; but, in this work, he does not resort 
to Hebrew manuscripts for a comparison, but to 
three Greek versions of equal corruption with the 
version of the 70, and corrects by these, which, 



60 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

strange to say, were themselves legitimate ojfs'prinrjs 
of the one he was seeking to correct^ thas, entailing 
upon the original all the defects that had, throagh 
inadvertence or design, crept into the later versions. 
Lastly, it still remains a question which of the 
three Septuagint versions used respectively in 
Palestine, Constantinople and Egypt, prepared sev- 
erally by Origin Hesychius and Lucian, are we to 
conclude is the parent of the present version of the 
Old Testament. Each may claim the honor; it 
belongs to but one. Who shall say then it was the 
correct one ? The inspiring spirit is silent on the 
subject, and man at last has been left to decide the 
all important matter for himself. Argument, to 
prove, in the face of these facts, the hand of God in 
giving and preserving in purity this book as hea- 
ven's legacy to man for his guidance in matters of 
religious faith and practice, would only tend to 
make the absurdity more palpable and glaring. 
Be it remembered, all the foregoing facts, upon 
which these conclusions are predicated, are derived 
directly from the Fathers and early historians in 
the church, and hence no objection can be taken to 
them, for if these have instructed us falsely, where, 
and to whom, shall we look for truth? 



CHAPTER III. 

Extravagances In-consistencies and Self 
Contradictions. 

God's word should be free from extravagances, 
inconsistencies and self contradictions. It should 
never inculcate an immoral principle, much less, 
make God the author of it. It should never at- 
tribute to God acts of cruelty, wrong or oppression. 
It should not represent God as fickle, changeable 
or capricious, nor should it represent him as defi- 
cient in foresight and surprised, at times, that things 
did not result as he anticipated or intended ; nor 
should it represent God as possessed of human vices 
and follies, passions, lusts, or weaknesses. 

In (1 Chron. 22: 14), it is stated by David, '• Now 
behold, in my trouble, I have prepared for the 
house of the Lord, a hundred thousand talents of 
gold, and a hundred thousand talents of silver." A 
talent of silver is 4862,5 pence, sterling money, and 
a talent of gold was 5075,5 pounds sterling, which 
would amount to the sum of §2,714,525,000 nearly. 
This sum is fabulously large, amounting to almost 
three-fourths of all the coin in the United States and 
Europe in 1810. This David had prepared "in 
his trouble." Of the silver alone, there must have 
been, not less than, 4500 tons, sufficient to load 
6 



62 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

eight ships with a burden of 500 tons each. Add 
the gold to this, and we will have ten or twelve 
ship loads of the treasure that the king devoted to 
the temple. It needs no argument to prove this 
Bible statement to be untrue. Every one who 
reads and reflects knows there is no reliance to be 
placed in the story. 

The account of the deluge in Genesis, is too un- 
reasonable to demand even a passing notice were it 
not for the fact, that, when interrogated, if people 
believe it, they will reply, " of course, if I believe 
the Bible," having thought of the story only as con- 
tained in the "word of God," and never of its enorm- 
ity. Let them read then. The Ark was a boat, or 
something of the kind, five hundred and fifty feet 
long, ninety-one feet and eight inches length of 
beam, and fifty-five feet high, with three stories, and 
a single opening in the top, for the admission of light. 
This must have left the lower two stories entirely 
dark. Into this ship were to be taken twos of all 
unclean beasts, reptiles, insects, &c., and sevens of 
all kinds of birds, and clean beasts. Of birds, 
there are 6226 varieties, which, multiplied by seven 
amounts to 43,862, or nearly three to every square 
yard of the area of the three decks. There were 
over 5000 of the beasts, and many of these of co- 
lossal proportions, that would of themselves have 
made more than a cargo ; of reptiles 914, insects 
1,500,000, and land snails, 9200. Food for all these 
would require, for the herbiferous animals, hay at 
the least calculation, 3500 tons requiring two- 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 63 

thirds the arks capacity ; graia for thousands of 
birds, rodents and others, flesh for lions, hyenas, 
leopards, tigers, jackals, dogs, foxes, wolves, bears, 
minks, otters, ounces, wild cats, lynxes, eagles, vul- 
tures, buzzards, hawks, owls, cormorants, falcons, 
kingfishes, penguins, albatrosses, crocodiles, and 
serpents, nearly all of which consume nearly their 
weight every month ; fruit for 442 monkeys, be- 
sides numerous fruit eating birds, with insects 
for the hosts of insect eating birds, and the reader 
has some idea of the vast collection of the animal 
creation that Koah took with him into the ark, and 
the food to sustain them during the 875 days of 
their mysterious incarceration within those scanty 
limits. 

These birds and animals must have been fed and 
attended to daily, and that by eight persons only, 
including women. Each one then must have fed, 
watered and otherwise attended to, no less than 
645 beasts, 114 reptiles, 1150 land snails, 5482 birds, 
187,600 insects ; quite too many for any one per- 
son daily, and some must have suffered and died 
of hunger and thirst before the feeder could " get 
round ;" and Noah might not have been surprised 
to find, on his first rounds, that the voracious 
hawks had made their first meal of the seven 
pigeons, the condor or eagle of the hare, the lion or 
tiger of the gazell, or that the frolicsome ring- 
tailed monkey had thrown one or both cats over- 
board. But this is not all. How and when did 
Noah and his sons gather and cure all that hav, and 



6i BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

press it in a form to ship? Think of it 3500 tons 
of hay ! that one man could not pitch over once in 
much less three years, besides all the other food re- 
quisite, must have required years for its collection. 
Another obstacle, scarcely less in its proportions, is 
presented in the compliance of Noah with the di- 
vine injunction found in (Gen. 7, 2, 3). " Of every 
clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the 
male and his female ; and of beasts that are not 
clean by twos, the male and his female. Of fowls 
of the air by sevens, the male and the female, to 
keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth." 
At the time this command is given, no collection of 
animals has taken place, and the entire work must 
be accomplished in seven days. Has the reader 
thought what labor, and travel, and danger are in- 
volved in this undertaking. Aside from the few 
animals, birds and insects in the immediate neigh- 
borhood of the Ark, the elephant and mastodon 
must be brought from their fields of pasturage in 
the distance. The lion must be caught in his 
African jungle, and the leopard in India, the white 
bear from the polar regions, the lama from South 
America, the American bison from the western 
prairie, the lynx from British America, the condor 
from the summit of the Andes, the buzzard from 
southern Europe or America, the Kangaroo from 
Australia, the gopher from the prairies of the west, 
one variety of wolf from southern Europe, and 
another from northern, one from South, and 
another from North America, one lion and tiger 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 65 

from the eastern continent, and another from the 
western, the black bear from Europe or Asia, and 
the grizzly from the rocky mountains, some varie- 
ties of monkey from Asia, some from Africa, and 
others from America, the antelope from Arabia, 
the gorilla from Africa, the orang from Australia 
oi: Borneo, and the apes from Africa, the bird of 
paradise from the Indies, and the petrel, the pen- 
guin and albatross from Arctic or Antarctic seas. 
The huge hippopotamus and scaly crocodile must 
be captured. The walrus and the seal must not be 
forgotten, nor the beaver, the otter, mink or 
muskrat. 

The high latitudes of the American continent 
must be visited again for the musk ox, and the 
moose captured in Canada. The urus and the wild 
auroch must be entraped, turtles, tortoises and am- 
phibious lobsters must be taken in their several 
localities, while boa constrictors, anacondas, rattle- 
snakes, blue racers, adders, garter snakes, and black 
snakes with copperheads, massasaugers, and mo- 
casin snakes, vipers and cobras, make up but in part 
this motley crowd of that class of the creation upon 
which the curse particularly rested. Then come the 
fleas, bed bugs, wood-ticks, musquitoes, dragon 
flies, centipedes and tarantulas, scorpions and spi- 
ders, blue-bottled-flies and yellow jackets, mud 
wasps, hornets and humble bees, honey bees by 
sevens or twos, not a colony at all, with toads, frogs, 
lizzards, &c., and — let the reader suppl}- the rest. 
The Bible demands it ; not one is to be left out, and 



66 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

the entire collection is to be made in the short space 
of seven days. It was an impossibility, by any 
other means, than a miracle, which must not be 
claimed; the Bible does not mention it, and we can- 
not supply it. How did the polar bear live in that 
sultry climate where the ark was built, and where 
it rested ? also the walrus, and the seal, and polar 
fox and wolf? Every naturalist knows that not one 
of them would have lived to reach the ark, or to get 
back again to their native haunts after the ark 
rested. The penguin, albatross and petrel would 
have shared the same fate. Again, how did they 
live a year and ten days destitute of light and fresh 
air ? *' Impossible 1 " says all experience. Again, 
is it to be presumed that that wicked and barbarous 
generation, when they saw the heavens gathering 
blackness, and the safety valves of the great deep 
giving way, and all the animals coming voluntarily 
to Noah, contrary to their own native instincts, (for 
they must have come, Noah could not have collected 
them), leaving the only climates, countries and lati- 
tudes, that they were constitutionally fitted to endure, 
as if changed by almighty power in an instant and 
fitted for the new, and led by an almighty intelli- 
gence to this ark of safety, as if privy to the designs 
of God, and approving the plan of distruction, would 
have looked calmly, and listlessly, and sneeringly 
on, till all were secure, and they themselves left 
entirely out, exposed to the pending destruction of 
the threatening overflow of waters ? Would they 
not, when they saw this manifest hand of God in 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 67 

these unnatural doings, have opposed the entering 
of the animals into the ark, and taken possession of 
the ship themselves, even though the lives of Noah 
and his family had paid the penalty of any opposi- 
tion to their designs? But they were miracuously 
prevented from thus thwarting the plans of infinite 
justice and infinite anger. There was no miracle 
about it. The Bible mentions none. It was no more 
than building a ship at any navy yard and loading 
her Avith men, animals and provisions, and waiting 
the tide to rise and set her afloat ; and with all due 
deference and respect for the opinions of those who 
*' believe the Bible," let me ask, do you believe this 
account with all the inevitable detail mentioned and 
hinted at is reliable as a history ? Is it not rather 
a fable, and entitled to no credence whatever as a 
matter of fact ? 

It is said. Gen. 6. 5, 6, 7, " And the Lord saw that 
the wickedness of man was very great in the earth, 
and that the imagination of the thous^hts of his 
heart, was only evil continually. And it repented 
the Lord that he had made man upon the earth, and 
it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said I 
will destroy man whom I have created, from the 
face of the earth, both man and beast, and creeping 
things, and the fowls of the air."' Here God gives 
as a reason for sending this destructive deluge of 
waters, the wickedness of man ; but, in the 8th chap- 
ter, 21st verse, we hear the same God saying, when 
he smells the odor of the burning flesh upon the 
first post diluvian altar, "I will not again curse the 



68 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

ground any more for man's sake, for the imagination 
of man's heart is evil from his youth." Here God 
is represented in the former passage, as destroying 
man on account of his wickedness and, for the same 
reason pledging himself in the latter, not. to do so 
again. Are both these statements literally true ? 
It is impossible for the mind to receive them as 
such. They are absolutely contradictory. In Num- 
bers 11. 81, we are told of an enormous shower of 
quails, " brought up from the sea by a wind, that 
went forth from the Lord." By a careful calcula- 
tion there could not have been less than 5,000,000,000 
of cubic yards of these birds, sufficient to breed, by 
putrefaction, a pestilence that would have swept off 
the entire nation in a single week. Or if the reader 
prefers another calculation, and one more moderate, 
let him take the amount gathered. It is said in 
verse 32, that " the people gathered the quails, and 
he that gathered the least had ten homers." Sup- 
pose by an average we allow fifteen homers to each 
individual we should have 140 bushels, or about 
46 barrels of quails to each individual in the Hebrew 
camp, a quantity that no God, or man, of common 
intelligence, would have thought of sending at one 
time. And they came "from the sea." How was 
this possible? Quails do not inhabit the sea. 

But we are here met with the ever ready argu- 
ment, " it was a miracle." But the Bible does not 
say so. It tells the story as though it really hap- 
pened by natural causes. The winds blew from the 
sea, and, in their ample pinions, gathered up this 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 69 

enormous quantity of birds, and loosened their 
grasp upon them just in time to let them flutter 
down about the camp, just as the people were in 
the carnivorous mood, and they gathered, and 
spread them out to dry, all about the camp, for a 
distance of twenty miles, of course, and there was 
nothing miraculous about it, that we can learn from 
the Bible. This story may do for theological pur- 
poses, but as a history, — for it comes to us as such 
only, it is entirely wanting in credibility. 

In Judges 14. 4, we are told that Samson went 
and caught 300 foxes and turned them tail to tail, 
and put a fire-brand in the midst, between the two 
tails, and let them go into the standing corn of the 
Philistines to set fire to and consume it. What- 
ever may have been the skill and expertness of 
Samson as a hunter of foxes, it is not possible he 
could have caught so many in one locality. Foxes 
are never so plenty as that. There are probably 
not so many foxes in any one of the New England 
states ; and, besides, the foxes would naturally have 
taken to the woods instead of the fields, as soon as 
let loose. In the same chapter, verse 8, we are told 
that Samson smote the Philistines " hip and thigh 
with a great slaughter." Is it possible a single man 
could commit any great slaughter in an army of 
thousands against him? Yerse 15 tells us he found 
a new jaw bone of an ass, and, taking it in his 
hand, slew a thousand men, and, looking exulting 
about, God smiling on him the while, and well 
pleased with the slaughter, he exclaims, with a 



70 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

feeling of savage triumph, *' heaps "apon heaps, 
with the jaw bone of an ass I have slain a thousand 
men." He is weary, but not so much weary as 
thirsty, and God cleaves a hollow in the gory bone, 
and water gushes forth, and Samson drinks, and 
*' his spirits come again, and he revives." No mira- 
cle is intimated here by the Bible, yet the whole ac- 
count of this man and his superhuman exploits 
lacks historic certitude. Is it true that the three 
condemned Hebrews were thrown into that furnace, 
heated seven times hotter than it was wont to be ? 
*' Impossible," says the chemist, " multiply the 
degree of incandescence by seven, and the whole 
contents of the furnace, men and all, would have 
flown off in a state incandescent vapor. Science 
demonstrates this statement to be true, and hence 
as a history, the Bible statement is not reliable. 
Whatever may have been God's protection of his 
favorite worshippers, the fuel of the furnace could 
not have been retained under so great a degree of 
heat. Did Jonah really live three days in the stom- 
ach of a fish and escape by ejection unharmed ? 
Did Jesus feed a multitude of at least ten thousand 
on an amount of food scarcely sufficient for a dozen ? 
Did those demons leave their usurped human habit- 
ations, and tabernacle in the organisms of swine, 
and drive them into the sea ? The Bible asserts 
that all these things were done, but their historic 
certitude is wanting. 

In Num. 31, God is represented as directing 
Moses to war against the Midianites, and he does 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 71 

SO, slays a large number of tliem, and takes their 
flocks and herds, with the women and children, 
whereupon God, by Moses, commands all the 
mothers with the male children to be slain in cold 
blood, but all the virgins to be given over to a fate 
worse than that of death. Such an act as this, 
would, if perpetrated by any modern nation, call 
down the vengeance of the entire civilized world, 
and well it might, yet the Bible represents it as 
God's doings, and a portion of the females were de- 
voted to the uses of his altar. The whole number 
thus saved was 32,000, and 52 sacrificed. This 
story is not only improbable, but absolutely blas- 
phemous. It charges upon God, not only the crime 
of cold blooded murder of helpless women and in- 
nocent children, but the still more heinous offence 
against humanity, the sacrifice of female virtue and 
purity upon the polluted altar of uncontrolled pas- 
sion and unsanctified lust. In all candor and sin- 
cerity of soul did God direct that horrid cruelty ? 

In Leviticus 35. 44, 46, is recorded God's provis- 
ion for slavery. The Jew is not to be ruled over 
with rigor, nor for a longer term than seven years, 
unless a new contract of servitude is entered into, 
but, of strangers, they may buy for themselves and 
their children, and they shall be their " hond-men 
forever^''' This law has never, according to the 
Bible, been either modified, abrogated or repealed. 
How could it be ? Slavery is made a perpetual and 
an eternal institution, by a single act of legislation 
on the part of God. Is it true ? Then the Union 



72 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

men of the north, fought against an institution of 
heaven when they poured out their blood upon 
southern battle-fields to free our nation from the 
curse of human slavery. The Jew had even a right 
to kill his slave, not suddenly, but if he lived a 
day or two after the blow, he should not be punished, 
for "he is his money," (Ex. 21. 21.) 

The Bible represents God as jealous and revenge- 
ful, (Exo. 80. 5), " For I, the Lord thy God, am 
a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers 
upon the children to the third and fourth genera- 
tions of them that hate me." David, the man " after 
Gods own heart," in the 109th Psalm breathes out 
the most terrible imprecations against his enemies 
and their unborn children, (verse 9), " Let his 
children be fatherless and his wife a widow." 
"Let his children be continually vagabonds and 
beg ; let them seek their bread out of their desolate 
places," (verse 10). "Let there be none to extend 
mercy to him, neither let there be any to favor his 
fatherless children," (verse 12). Did God approve 
of that prayer ? He certainly did according to the 
Bible, for David was " a man after God's own 
heart," and never did but one thins^ that God did 
not approve of, and that was in the case of his bTo- 
ther's wife. Is it true that God is subject to the 
weakness of jealousy ? That is a human weakness, 
and always arises from a feeling of inferiority, 
which is not consistent with the character of an in- 
finite being. Is he so unjust as to visit, except by 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 73 

the law of hereditary descent, the sins of the parent 
upon the child? 

We may read that this is so, but can, and does 
the mind receive it as a reality? If not, then as the 
statement of a fact, it is not reliable. It is a fact 
that some of the psalms of David express the highest 
and holiest sentiments and emotions of the soul, the 
most exalted imagery and the truest touches of 
poetry, for which the author might, with propriety, 
claim inspiration ; but when it is claimed that God 
inspired the sentiment of the pslam refered to, the 
statement strikes the mind as a blasphemous error. 
Such opposite streams of bitter and sweet waters 
may flow through the same dike, but they cannot 
proceed from the same fountain. Is God infinite ? 
So all men believe, and so the Bible is supposed to 
represent him; yet in (Gen. 3. 8), we are told that 
God " walked in the garden in the cool of the day," 
and further on, that, not finding Adam and Eve 
as he expected, called to them, whereupon they 
produced themselves. It may be claimed that he 
saw them all the time, and knew where they were. 
But this cannot be, for the Bible expressly asserts 
that they hid themselves from the presence of the Lord 
God amongst the trees of the garden:'' It is no use to 
shuffle the language ; it evidently means something, 
real or imagined. If the former, then there was a 
finite being which Adam called the Lord God. If 
the latter, it matters little or nothing what it means. 
In Gen. (18. 21), God is represented as saying " I 
7 



74 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

will go down now, and see whether they have done 
altogether according to the cry of it which is come 
unto me, and if not I will know." Here is an ac- 
knowledgment of God that he had heard something 
quite directly about Sodom, and, from the relia- 
bility of his informant, he thought it best to inves- 
tigate the matter personally, and hence does so, and 
does it as a man ; for, in verse 2, we are told that 
he appeared as one of three men, and he was so 
very like a man, that the old patriarch did not 
hesitate, the disguise of flesh being so complete, to 
call him a man. That Abraham had further reason 
for calling him a man, is evident from the state- 
ment in the eighth verse that he " stood by them 
under the tree and they did eat." As an evidence 
that Abraham he knew him to be God, his calling 
him Lord in the familiar conversation by the way, 
after the rustic meal, and the tacit acceptance of the 
title on the part of the divine partner in the con- 
versation, is abundant proof. The question is, was 
God there or was he not? The Bible says he was, 
and that he used the language quoted, and that he 
did eat of that calf and of those cakes. It is not 
true^ and such a representation of the God of the 
whole universe must be regarded as entirely incor- 
rect. 

Again the Bible says he appeared to Moses 
and Aaron and the seventy who were with them, 
and that Moses talked with God "face to face." Jacob 
saw God, Isaiah saw him, Michaiah beheld him, 
and they all lived, notwithstanding it is said in 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. iO 

(John 1. 13). "No man hath seen God at any 
time," and in (1 Tim. 6. 16), "Whom no man hath 
seen or can see," and in Ezekiel (33. 20), " There 
shall no man see me and live," in which texts, the 
fact of God's invisibility is set forth in language at 
once clear and unambiguous. If he was seen, then 
he was visible and individualized, and not infinite, 
for an infinite being cannot be an individual, and 
subject to the observance and exhaustive view and 
scrutiny of finite man ; and, further, the latter pas- 
sages quoted of his not having been seen, are in- 
correct and contradictory of the former. If the 
latter be true he was not seen, and Moses and the 
others who declare they did see him were either 
deceived or deceivers. Whichever horn of the di- 
lemma may be taken, one thing is certain ; the 
Bible makes so many conflicting statements about 
God — David believes him omnipresent and so does 
Isaiah — that its testimony respecting him, whether 
finite or infinite, local or omnipresent, sometimes 
visible or always invisible, whether he be spirit or 
man, whether he be benovolent or malevolent, a God 
of love, or a God of hatred, whether he be philan- 
thropic or a hater of man and a murderer, whether 
he prefers animal, human, or spiritual sacrifices, 
whether he be pro-slavery or anti-slavery, a temper- 
ance God or a God of intemperance, impotent 
or all-powerful, whether he delights in blessing 
or cursing, female virtue or prostitution, and 
lastly, whether he designs finally the eternal happi- 
ness, misery or annihilation of his children, that its 



76 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

testimony may justly be claimed for either, and all 
sides, of these vital questions regarding the divine 
Being, and is of no value to the Biblical student 
whatever as settling any one of them. If there be 
any preponderance of testimony, his terrible slaugh- 
ter of Egyptian children and the plagues heaped 
upon that people simply because God himself had 
hardened the heart of their monarch, the slaughter 
of the nations of Canaan, to give the Jews homes 
and farms they had never built or improved, and 
flocks and herds they had never reared, the repeated 
murders of his own people by famine, pestilence, 
sword and serpents, the sacrifice and prostitution of 
32,000 females pure and innocent, the institution of 
slavery and confering eternity upon it, the threat- 
ened annihilation of his own chosen people, pre- 
vented only by the importunity and wiser counsels 
of the more politic Moses, the injustice and cruelty 
to his own innocent Son in laying the sins of the 
thrice guilty world upon him, his partiality in his 
plan of salvation, which is practically adapted to 
only a small portion of the human family, his terri- 
ble damnation of all the rest to all eternity, and, 
lastly, his constant multiplication of human victims 
for his interminable wrath, virulent anger and ex- 
ploitering power, would prove him to be the most 
grim and terrible conception of a being that ever 
terrified the imagination of the human soul, and the 
few feeble expressions of love the Bible contains of 
him, even to the wiping of all tears from the eyes 
of his saints, with his right-hand Avhile he torments 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 77 

the siuners he might have saved, but did not, with 
his left, putting a new song in the mouth of the one, 
and extorting a fresh, wail at the same time from 
the soul of the other, are such fearful couplings of 
opposite extremes, that the love view, scarcely re- 
lieves his character of the dark habilaments the 
Bible throws arounds it, and Bible interpreters 
have tinged with a still darker hue. 

As to the chasteness and purity of the Bible in its 
conceptions, history and language, what more re- 
volting and disgusting, than the history of Lot with 
his two daughters ? And yet the Bible nowhere con- 
demns it, but the inference is, the Bible writer 
justified it. Eead the amorous exploits of Abraham, 
Isaac, Jacob, the story of Tamar and Judah, the 
dissolute and epicurian life of Solomon, the vulgar 
idea and language of Ezekiel, the counsel of God 
to Hosea, as to whom be should take for a wife, the 
amorous songs of Solomon, of which he wrote 1,005, 
thankful we have no more of them unless they were 
more chaste and pure than those we have ! But we 
are told that deep and beautiful spiritual truths lie 
concealed beneath their letter, concealed it is true, 
(if there at all) which invests them with a superior 
beauty and excellence. Apply the same deep 
spiritual meaning any to of the maudlin songs of the 
modern dance house, or Don Juan, or the obscene 
allusions in many of the condemned journals of the 
day, and would they not read quite as well ? And 
then call them God's word, and let a minister ex- 
pound them, for the edification and salvation of the 



78 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

world, and a council canonize them, and would the 
Bible in its present form, tone and contents, be in 
the least disgraced bj such an appendix ? The 
reader must judge, I can write, but not think for 
him. Need the reader be refered to the many self 
contradictions of the Bible, that God repents and 
does not repent? That he is never weary and yet 
" rests and is refreshed ? " That he is all love, and yet 
burning with anger ? That he wdll have all men to 
be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth, and 
yet is going to damn far the largest portion of them ? 
Must he be told of a son who commenced to reign 
as king two years older than his father, and the 
hundreds of other contradictions to be found in the 
book ? Will he read Paul's low idea of woman and 
marriage expressed in his brief correspondence with 
Timothy ? Shall he be reminded of the indecency 
of Isaiah, who went about the streets, naked (Is. 21. 
2, 8), and Eziekel, who laid down on one side and 
prophecied, and then turned upon the other and 
prophecied, as though the divine spirit needed the 
change ? No one who reads the Bible can fail to 
see the clear traces of inspiration in its pages. But, 
while this is admitted, it is equally true, that no 
prophet or inspired individual is at all times under 
the influence of the inspiring intelligence; and yet 
it must be confessed, the Bible contains all the good, 
bad and indifferent of men's sayings and doings, both 
inspired and uninspired, and, without the least dis- 
crimination, engrosses the whole as of one character? 
and equally entitled to credence and belief, as the 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 79 

infallible word of God. This is absurd and untrue. 
Paul settles this matter, for he himself declares, that 
he speaks by command, he speaks by permission, 
he speaks as a man, and he speaks as a fool. Will 
he be taken at his word ? He says, (Komans 3. 7), 
"If the truth of God hath more abounded through 
my lie unto his glory, why yet am I judged as a 
sinner ? " 

Here he acknowledges that he did dissimulate, 
or, to use his own language, lie outrigt for the fur- 
therance of the truth as he understood it, and the 
Bible does not condemn him for it, and he thinks 
he should be justified for the act, since good came 
of it to the church. Mosheim, Lardner, Burnett, 
and many others agree, that, during the first three 
centuries of our Era, there was much lying and 
forging of writings in the interests of early Christi- 
anity, and it yet remains to be seen, (if ever it can be), 
how much genuine, and how much forgery, the Bible 
contains. 

Its representation of man in the future state of his 
existence, according to the orthodox interpretation, 
is appalling in the extreme. The violence done to 
our common nature in the process of sanctification, 
beggars all thought, and all language to express; 
and its result must make any good man utterly hate, 
loath and and detest himself ever after, and the God 
that saved him with swcA a "salvation." That men 
with all their powers and faculties unimpaired 
should be aubject to eternal torment is quite bad 
enough ; but to so change poor human nature that 



80 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

al] love of man for his fellow, husbands for wives, 
and wives for husbands, parents for children and 
children for parents, brothers for sisters, and sisters 
for brothers, and friends for friends, and the uni- 
versal reign of a selfishness that not only thanks 
God for its own salvation, but with fiendish exulta- 
tion gathers a keener relish for the joys of heaven 
from a view of the miseries of the lost, and loves 
God more for the hell torments of his fellows than 
he could without, is a picture of human nature sancti- 
fied, that no heathen theological artist has even 
drawn ; and the character of a God, who could 
thus sanctify his children, is a character that 
would make any heathen priest blush for the votary 
that conceived it. Both are pictures of God and 
sanctified man, reserved for the refinements of 
modern christian artists, whose brushes must have 
been diped in the blackest pool of human malevo- 
lence and hate, embittered by the gall of religious 
intolerance and ecclesiastical cruelty. But this is 
clearly a Bible doctriney and, we are told, so plain, 
that he that runs may read, and certainly, so appall- 
ing, that, with the author, he that reads will run. 



CHAPTER Y. 

The Pentateuch. 

Probably, in all the range of history, there is not 
a passage told with greater gravity and more appa- 
rent sincerity, than the history of the advent of 
Jacob and his whole family, children and grand- 
children, into the country of Egypt, their sojourn 
there, their rapid multiplication, notwithstanding 
the repeated efforts of the kings of Egypt to pre- 
vent it, the great and mysterious events of their 
last days of sojourn in the land, their ultimate 
"going forth" and the stupendous obstacles therein 
encountered, and their forty years travel in the 
wilderness and the desert, to their final destina- 
tion, the goodly land of Canaan. We are not 
shocked at any improbable, or even impossible 
event, related to have occurred among the ancients, 
under the superintendence of a miraculous exercise 
of the will and power of God or the gods. This 
miracle working power was in almost constant ex- 
ercise, according; to ancient sacred writino^s, and 
beliefs, and we find no fault with it as su<ih, how- 
ever much we may disbelieve it at the present 
time ; but when we are called upon to receive as 
historically. true, events that throw totally into the 
shade all the fanciful stories of Gulliver, Baron 
Monchausen and Sinbad the Sailor, without even a 



82 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

Lint at a miracle, we can scarcely decide whether 
our reason is insulted, or we are ironically repri- 
manded for too great a tax hitherto imposed upon 
our credulity. The whole story of Jacob and his 
descendants, from the selling of Joseph by his 
brethren, to the final possession of the lands of all 
the heathen tribes by the conquering Hebrews, is 
one made up of so many unheard of and unnatural 
events, that, coming as it does, clothed with the as- 
surance of so-called inspiration, that a thorough 
analysis of the whole account becomes in this con- 
nection a necessity. 

(Exodus 1. 1, 5,) "Now these are the names 
of the children of Israel which came into Egypt; 
every man and his household who came with 
Jacob. Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah, Issachar, 
Zsbulun and Benjamin, Dan and Naphtali, Gad 
and Ashur. And all the souls that came out of the 
loins of Jacob were seventy souls; for Joseph was 
in Egypt already J"* In verse 7, it is said, " And 
the children of Israel were fruitful and increased 
abundantly, and multipled, and waxed exceeding 
mighty ; and the land was filled with them.'^ The 
9th verse says of the king of Egypt, " And he said 
unto his people, Behold the people of the children 
of Israel are more and mightier than we." This 
man, the 8th verse says, " was a new king who 
knew not Joseph." The expression '"''anew king''' 
implies one, not long after the time of Joseph. 
How then can it be said the children of Israel had 
multiplied to such an enormous extent? Could it 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 83 

be said with the least propriety "the land was 
filled with them ?" Again, how was it possible 
they could, according to the statements have so in- 
creased at this time as to outnumber the Egyptians, 
who were a powerful nation at the time of the pur- 
chase of Joseph ? Yerse 13, " And the Egyptians 
made the children of Israel serve with rigor." 

How could this have been, since the Israelites 
were in the ascendant, both as to power and num- 
bers. Surely it could have been only by the con- 
sent of the oppressed. Fifteenth verse. " And the 
king of Egypt spake unto the Hebrew midwives (of 
which the name of one was Shiphirah and the name 
of the other was Puah)." This seems to have been 
not far from the time of the birth of Moses, for the 
effort to arrest the multiplication of the Hebrews by 
the midwives was at the time of the birth of this so 
called deliverer, in proof which, in verse 22. we 
read it was Pharoah who tried the new expedient of 
charging the Egyptians to throw every male child 
of the Hebrews into the river. Moses was born in 
this reign. At this time we gain a somewhat near 
glimpse of the Hebrew population of Egypt. This 
was 80 years before the exodus. At the time of 
the latter event, the men capable of bearing arms 
were 600,000 strong; 80 years prior, or at the time 
of the birth of Moses, they could not have numbered 
less than, 400,000. Now suppose we place the 
time of the command to the midwives, 40 years 
prior to this (the birth of Moses) and call the military 
force 300,000 which certainly would be a low esti- 



84 BIBLE IN" THE BALANCE. 

mate. The military force of a nation is usually es- 
timated at one sixth or one seventh the entire popu- 
lation. This, as a data, would indicate a Hebrew 
population of about, 1,800,000, at the time the com- 
mand to destroy the male children was given. Sup- 
pose we put it one forth, and we have a Hebrew 
population of about 1,200,000. Now allowing six, 
as the average number in each family, we have 
no less than 200,000 families. Allowing a birth in 
each family once in two years and we shall have 
yearly 100,000 births, or daily 214, which would 
require each of the two (for there were only two) 
midwives to attend to 107 births dailv, a thino^ 
quite impossible without the aid of a miracle, which 
is not hinted at in the Bible. With all the claim 
to accuracy and inspiration, the foregoing statements 
cannot be relied on as historically correct. No 
midwife or accoucheur could attend so many 
births daily, especially if one half of the children 
were to be murdered. In Exodus 12, The direction 
is given for killing and eating the paschal lamb, 
and preparing for their departure from the land of 
Egypt. Commencing with verse third, the account 
reads thus, "Speak ye unto all the congregation 
of Israel, saying. In the tenth day of this month 
they shall take to them every man a lamb according 
to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house, 
and if the household be too little for the lamb, let 
him and his neighbor next unto his house take it 
according unto the number of souls : every man, 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 85 

according to his eating, shall make your count for 
the lamb. 

The lamb shall be without blemish, a male of 
the first year; ye shall take it out from the sheep 
or from the goats : and ye shall keep it up until 
the fourteenth day of the same month : and the 
whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall 
kill it in the evening. And they shall take of the 
blood and strike it upon the two side posts, and on 
the upper door post of the houses wherein they 
shall eat it. And they shall eat the flesh in that 
night, roast with fire and unleavened bread, and 
with bitter herbs they shall eat it. Eat not of it 
raw nor sodden at all with water, but roast with 
fire , his head with his legs and with the purte- 
nance thereof. And ye shall let nothing of it remain 
until the morning, and that which remaineth of it 
•until the morning ye shall burn with fire. And thus 
shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes 
on your feet and your staff' in your hand: and ye 
shall eat it in haste, it is the Lord's passover. (Yerse 
22), "And none of you shall go out of the door of his 
house until the morning." (Yerse 23), "For the Lord 
will pass through to smite the Egyptians, and when 
he seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two 
side posts, the Lord will pass over the door, and 
will not suffer the destroyer to come into your 
houses to smite you." 

From the foregoing scripture we get an idea of 
the manner in which the Hebrews lived among the 
8 



86 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

Egyptians; not in cities by themselves, but dis- 
tributed promiscuously among them. The same 
fact is apparent from the passage respecting the 
herds and flocks of the two nations (Ex. 9. 3). Many 
have supposed the Hebrews were separated from the 
Egyptians in cities of their own, but this, it is evi- 
dent, could not have been so, since the Lord in his 
nightly round was able to distinguish between the 
two only by the bloody sign upon the door posts 
which sign would have been quite unnecessary, had 
the Hebrews lived in a city or cities, by themselves, 
or even in certain prescribed sections of cities. It 
does not appear from this, since Jews were allowed 
thus to live in all parts of the cities as they chose, 
that any great oppression could have been practiced 
upon them, by confining them to uncomfortable 
and unhealthy quarters, but quite the reverse ; that 
they were allowed as comfortable and commodious 
dwellings as the Egyptians had themselves. The 
same is true of the pasturage for their flocks and 
herds, and, as these were very numerous as we shall 
see as we proceed, the severe oppression disappears, 
under which they are said to have groaned. Numer- 
ous flocks and herds are quite incompatible with 
the fact of abject servitude and severe oppression. 
Is the statement of their severe oppression histori- 
cally true ? At the south the quarters of the slaves 
were so mean and lowly, and the mansions of their 
masters so stately and sumptuous, that a child even, 
would have been able, at sight, to distinguish be- 
tween the two, and decide which was which. Not 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 87 

SO had they lived in cities and promiscuously inter- 
blended as to their habitations. This being the fact 
according to the letter of the text, the statement of 
severe oppression must be received as incorrect, 
A strange circumstance may, in passing, be noticed 
here. (In. 9. 3, and 4,) it is said, " Behold the hand 
of the Lord is upon thy cattle which is in the field, 
upon the horses, upon the oxen and upon the sheep. 
There shall be a very grievous murrain. And the 
Lord shall sever between the cattle of Israel and 
the cattle of Egypt; and there shall nothing die of 
all that is the children's of Israel." Here God is 
able to sever between the flocks and herds of the 
two nations grazing side by side in the same or 
contiguous fields, but when he comes to the people 
of the two nations, so alike are their homes, that an 
outward sign becomes necessary for him to know 
which are those of his own people. Verily so far 
as houses are concerned the Jew was as well off as 
the so-called oppressing Egyptian. But the argu- 
ment does not stop here, for, although as is frequent- 
ly the case, the exterior of the dwelling may have 
indicated for the Israelite as great comfort and 
luxurience as the Egyptian, still the interior might 
have presented nothing but disgusting filth and 
squalid poverty, while that of the oppressor abound- 
ed with all the elegance that riches could purchase. 
Did this difference in the interiors of the two 
habitations actually exist? It is not even supposa- 
ble, since had it been so, no need would have exis- 
ted for the blood upon the door-posts. It may be 



88 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

objected that the blood was not necessary to show 
God where the favorite people lived. But the 
Bible expressly declares that it was, and that it was 
put there for that very purpose. (Ex. 12. 13). 
" And the blood shall be to you for a token upon 
the houses where you are; and when I see the 
blood I will pass over you, etc., also verse 23 of the 
same chapter declares the same thing. Could there 
then have been any difierence between the Jew and 
Egyptian, either in the exterior of their dwellings 
or the comforts that were enjoyed within ? The 
difference, if any then, was so slight as not to be 
appreciable, even by God himself, according to the 
record. 

Again, we may look at the terms on which they 
lived with their reputed oppressors. Certainly the 
appointing of midwives for the Israelitish women, 
indicates anything but indifference and severity 
towards them. It indicates a careful regard for 
their health, happiness and increase, it may have 
been for selfish purposes, still, it made the women 
comfortable, kept them on friendly terms to a cer- 
tain extent with the Egyptians, and, when coupled 
with the fact of the comfort of their dwellings, 
could but insure the comfort of the Jewish people 
up to the age, on the part of the males of manhood, 
or that at which they would be serviceable as la- 
borers, and the females all through life. 

According to the accounts, the angel of the Lord 
was to pass through the city in the night, and 
smite with death the first-born of each family, from 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 89 

tlie king upon "his throne, to the first-born of the 
captive in his cell, and the first-born of the cattle. 
From the enumeration, there could not have been 
less than 2,400,000 of the Children of Israel, 
and, allowing six to each family, there would be 
four hundred thousand families, and again allowing 
tw^o families to each house we shall have no less 
than two hundred thousand houses to visit, by an 
angel, in a single night ; besides, it is a fair presump- 
tion that there were as many or more houses of the 
Egyptians than Jews, which would make two hun- 
dred thousand more. Thus the angel must visit 
four hundred thousand houses and examine both 
door-posts and the lintel before he could be satisfied 
that it was inhabited by a Hebrew. One side and 
the lintel would not do, nor both side posts alone. 
The blood must appear in the three places designa- 
ted, or there was no safety. Look at the number 
of visits in a single night ? Four hundred thou- 
sand ! one half to see the blood in three places on 
the front, and the other half to enter and perform, 
having examined all the inmates that he might get 
the right one, his murderous work. This is not a 
possibility. So many visits with all their results 
could not be made by one individual, man or angel 
in a single night. But, according to the story, it 
was all accomplished by midnight. The story is 
true or it is false. If then there was an angel, 
he must have been a finite being, that could | 

be in but one place at a time, and hence must make 
this mighty round of the city as any finite being 



90 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

would. He could not have visited more than one 
house in two minutes. This would have required 
for the 400,000 visits 800,000 minutes or 13,333 
hours, or a little over 555 days. To have per- 
formed all this in a single hour could not have been 
done without the aid of a miracle, which is not 
claimed in the Bible. The lamb has been killed 
and the Passover eaten. The destroying angel 
has done his deadly work, and all Egypt is in 
mourning, when Pharaoh calls for Moses and Aaron, 
and gives orders for them to depart with all the 
multitude of the Children of Israel, and also their 
flocks and their herds. The Children of Israel are 
all in their houses, under the command of Moses, 
and not one of them is to come out till the morning. 
Who was to conve}' the marching#orders of Moses 
to the multitude, since all were shut up in their 
houses? How was the order transmitted? By a 
courier or couriers of course. Had it been ne- 
cessary the entire Hebrew population should be 
notified within an hour (and, from the urgency of 
Pharaoh, this would seem a time short enough), no 
less than 6,666 couriers must have been employed, 
allowins: two families to have resided in one house. 
If but one in a house, twice that number must have 
been required. Here Moses and Aaron each, must 
commission, at the lowest estimate, nearly seven 
thousand couriers, each of whom was shut up in 
his house, and must be sought for, the direction 
given, and the command executed in the short 
space of not over one hour. Could any man, or 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE- 91 

any two men, visit so many dwellings in that length 
of time ? Not without the aid of a miracle which 
we have no right to claim, as the Bible does not 
mention such a thing. Having received the com- 
mission, could those couriers have visited each, 
thirty to forty different families within the pre- 
scribed time? For the Egyptians were in haste to 
have them gone. But here the difficulty deepens. 
This immense multitude, of two millions at least, 
are to be notified and put under marching orders, 
and in order of march, and marched out of the 
city that very nighty with all their effects and flocks 
and herds. Let a general attempt to move in a 
single night, not waiting to give orders till after 
midnight, an army of 600,000 well disciplined 
troops who are accustomed to tbe orders, and trained 
to obey quickly, and he will fail to see his last bat- 
talion on the move at the required time. Every 
intelligent military officer knows this to be true. 
But here we have, not an army of disciplined 
troops, but a " mixed multitude" of men women 
and children, helpless infants and decrepit old age. 
Many are on beds of sickness of course ; they could 
not all be well at one time ; many women were in 
confinement, and many men, women and children 
dying and dead in the houses. Philadelphia, with 
less than a million in habitants never sees the hour 
she has not more than one corpse unburied ; and it 
is not possible that no dead Israelites were on that 
night awaiting burial. The bones of Joseph are to 
be dug up and taken along, and, to say that, after 



92 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

midnight, Moses and Aaron are sent for bj Pharaoh 
and receive permission and orders to go, and com- 
municate it to all their people, who move with such 
order and celerity as to have entirely evacuated the 
city, with all their effects by morning, is to state 
what every candid honest man knows to be utterly 
impossible without a miracle which the Bible does 
not furnish. Provisions must be packed and trans- 
ported, for it is not enough that they had a little 
dough, as the Bible has it, kneaded in their trays, 
and tied up in bundles and slung across their 
shoulders. For the strong, this might do, if they 
went alone ; but not so with childhood and decrepit 
old age ; their food must be carried for them by the 
strong, who are already more than weighed down 
by the burdens of their own food and clothing, 
heavy rude kneading trays, and the spoils of the 
Egyptians. Pack mules and baggage wagons are 
out of the question, they must be carried on their 
shoulders. Miraculous aid is needed, but the Bible 
forbids it in this case, as well as in the former ones. 
Again, the flocks and the herds are to be collec- 
ted from the fields and driven out also, the same 
night. To ascertain the number of these, the pass- 
over affords us tolerably correct data. There was 
a lamb to each family, a male without blemish, and 
of the first year. This would require at least 
200,000 lambs and kids. Suppose this number to 
be one-third the increase of the yearlings of the 
flocks and herds, (for there must have been an 
equal number of females), which, added to the de- 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 93 

fective males, would leave the 200,000 only about 
one-third, which would give 600,000 for the in- 
crease of the flocks and herds from the 3^earlings 
alone. Double the number for the mothers of 
these, and add only one-third as many more, (which 
would be a low estimate), for the old ones and their 
increase, and we have the enormous sum of 
2,000,000 of sheep and goats, besides " very much 
cattle." 

These must also be collected and taken by the 
fugitives. How is it possible that all these people, 
with all their effects, could be moved out of the 
land in a single night ? It is simply impossible. 
If a well-disciplined army of 200,000 men, accus- 
tomed to the drum-call to prepare to march, and 
the subsequent order to move, could not be got 
from their camping-ground in a less time than 
twelve, and from that to twenty or thirty-six 
hours, how can we receive, as of the least historical 
value, the statement, that two millions of people, 
of all ages and both sexes, should be mustered, in 
the dead of night, into an order of march, their 
flocks and their herds, " even very much cattle," 
that were unaccustomed to being driven, and espe- 
cially from their old haunts, preceding or following 
after in unstraying submission to their fleeing 
owners ? 

The greatest army of General McClellen, 
amounted to about two hundred thousand men. 
This army could not receive orders from its com- 
mander and be got fully under march, in less than 



94 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

one whole day and night, by the most rapid dis- 
patches and manoeuvering possible. Take three times 
this number of men, undiciplined in military drill, 
harness them and set them on the march ; precede 
them by two millions of sheep and goats, and "very 
much cattle ;" and let them be followed by fourteen 
hundred thousand old men, women and children, 
with all their effects on their shoulders, including 
the requisite amount of provision — three days ra- 
tions at least — and get them out of the country by 
sunrise the next morning, remembering that three 
hours before the start these moving masses of 
animal and human beings were sleeping away the 
peaceful hours of night, or expectantly eating the 
passover, the death angel not having yet entered 
upon his dreadful errand, and you perform a feat 
that perfectly staggers imagination, No history ex- 
tant has ever dared to crowd so many, and such 
stupendous events into so small a compass of time. 
Within the space of four hours the first born of 
man and beast falls a victim to death ; Pharoah on 
his throne is bereaved, from the dwelling of his 
nearest subject comes to his ears a wail of sorrow, 
repeated oft by others, until the cry becomes general 
in the city, showing the monarch that the death 
is general. The herdmen from the fields, tell him 
that his flocks and herds are equally the victims of 
the destroyer, and the terrified prince sends for 
Moses and Aaron and gives command to depart 
from his dominions lest he and his subjects " be all 
dead men." Moses and Aaron receive the expected 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 95 

command to go, and when it comes thej are on the 
alert. But they are alone, no courier is at hand, 
and all the Hebrews are in their houses and under 
command to remain there till morning. But the 
command goes forth, women hear it dozing in their 
chairs, decrepit old age on its couch, sickness on its 
bed of pain and childhood, and infancy in their 
trundle beds and cribs, and instantly all are on the 
move, and all is bustle and confusion. Herdsmen 
rush to the field, soldiers for their " harness," and 
their weapons, and grave diggers, and pall bearers 
for the bones of Joseph. No ambulances, that the 
Bible tells of, for the sick, mothers and fathers are too 
heavily laden to carry the little ones, we are lead to 
infer, and yet, before the sun is up, the whole host 
of human beings and animals have left the domin- 
ions of Pharoah, and the king finds himself in un- 
disputed possession of their vacated tenements and 
fields, with the incumbrance of his dead, and, such 
as it is, the blessing of God by Moses. 

By no means possible, short of a miracle, could 
this have been done. But there was no miracle. 
Then the story would do very well in the form of a 
fairy tale, but as a history it is entirely valueless; 
no sane mind can receive it. 

The writer has lived on the great "cattle road" 
through the state of Indiana, from Ohio to the 
grazing fields of Illinois, and has seen probably five 
thousand cattle driven past his residence in a single 
day. The time of their passing would not vary 
much from six hours. For the passage of one mil- 



96 BIBLE IN" THE BALANCE. 

lion at this rate would require fifty days, and for 
two millions of sheep and goats with the " very 
much cattle," which we may safely set at one half 
a million, would require at least one hundred 
days to pass any given point, allowing the drove to 
be five rods in width. But allow it to one hundred 
instead of five, and still it would take this immense 
flock and herd no less than five days to pass a given 
point, allowing them to travel by night as well as 
by day, which is a thing quite impossible, for every 
drover knows that his herd must rest and graze 
twelve hours out of every twenty-four to keep up 
their streno^th and vig^or. This increases the difii- 
culty by increasing the time from five to ten days, 
that it would require to get the whole of the flocks 
and the " very much cattle " all on the move in the 
order of a drove. 

Of the people, allowing one thousand to each file, 
and the files six feet apart, the column would be 
nearly four and a half miles long, or if one hundred 
to the file, the column would reach no less than 
forty-five miles, and could not be got all on the 
march in less than three or four days, provided all 
were ready at a given time. No such " mixed mul- 
titude " could be got out of the city in less than a 
week, and when fairly on the march could not 
travel over eight miles in a day, and this, in a sin- 
gle day, over the hot arid plains of Egypt or Ara- 
bia, beneath a scorching sun and amid the terrible 
dust that could not be avoided, without water except 
what little they could transport on their shoulders, 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 97 

for they iiad neither camels, asses or other beasts of 
burden to carry it for them, would prove fatal to a 
large portion of the people. With no miracle to 
preserve them, it is folly to say they could have 
performed the march at all, destitute of every ne- 
cessity and comfort as they certainly were, much 
less that they were driven or led out in a single 
night. Let not the reader think a margin of time 
is denied them which the Bible gives. It allows 
none whatever. (Gen. 12. 39), expressly states 
*' Because they were thrust out of E^ypt and could 
not tarry, neither had they prepared for themselves 
any victual," and (verse 41), reads, " And it came 
to pass at the end of four hundred and thirty years, 
even the self-same day it came to pass that all the 
hosts of the Lord went out of the land of Egypt." 
(Verse 41). " It is a night to be much observed 
unto the Lord for bringing them out of the land of 
Egypt," and (verse 51), "And it came to pass the 
self-same day that the Lord did bring the children 
of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their armies." 
These passages are perfectly conclusive. The 
Bible does assert that all the children of Israel with 
their flocks and their herds, "even very much cat- 
tle," with all the spoil of the Egyptians, were 
brought out of the land in a single night, or day, 
the latter used as the date, while the former denotes 
the time of the twenty-four hours in which it was 
done, and all .without the aid of any miracle what- 
ever. To say more to prove the utter unreliability 

of this Bible storv, would be as insultins: to the 
9 



98 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

common sense of the reader, as an attempt to prove 
by demonstration the truth of a self evident propo- 
sition in geometry would be to the mathematician ; 
and yet the Bible writer tells the story with all the 
gravity and assurance that Headley uses in depict- 
ing one of the every day exploits of I^apoleon, Ir- 
ving those of Columbus, or Horace Greeley those 
of General Grant. No other foundation is left for 
the story to rest upon than dim-eyed credulity or 
bat-blind superstition. 

To assert the thing as historically true in the face 
of these facts, or to shrink from the investigation 
when once commenced, would betray little manly 
bravery and still less honesty and sincerity on the 
part of the Bible student. 



CHAPTEK VL 

The Pentateuch. {Continued.) 

In Gen. 14. (See the chapter) we are told that the 
Lord made the sea go back by a strong east wind 
all night and that the waters were divided so that 
the Hebrews passed through on dry land. From 
the trend of the shores, and the direction of the 
gulf of Suez where they must have crossed, an 
east wind could have no such effect, but, on the 
contrary, such a wind would only tend to increase 
the volume of water in that part of the sea. None 
but a north west wind, blowing heavily in the direc- 
tion of the receding tide, and along with it, would, 
or could, lay bare any portion of the bottom of the 
sea between where they are said to have started, 
and the opposite shore; and even this was never 
done according to any history, before, nor has 
been since. The agency of the east wind in the 
phenomenon is entirely inadmissible, in operating 
as a force upon the waters. 

Again, in the same chapter, we are told that the 
Children of Israel passed through in a single night, 
and that in the morning watch, (somewhere from 
one to three A. M.), the Hebrews all having emerg- 
ed from the sea, that Moses stretched forth his 
rod, and the waters came together again enveloping 
Pharaoh and his host. 



100 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

Here, remember, are two millions of people of all 
ages and both sexes, infants that must be carried, 
children that can walk but slowly, feeble mothers 
that must rest often, others must give birth to 
children in the mean time, old age with its hobble 
and its crutches, strong men, but loaded down 
with spoil as must have been the case, two millions 
of sheep and goats, and " very much cattle," all 
pass through the basin of the Red Sea in a single 
night, although we have seen that several days are 
required for such an immense cavalcade to pass a 
given point. Genesis fails to tell us how wide the 
passage was which was opened by the " east wind/' 
and hence we are left to conjecture. 

Suppose it was wide enough to allow the hosts 
to so expand as to make the column ten miles long. 
The passage itself is about eighteen miles through 
the sea^ requiring a march of twenty eight miles in 
a single night, to place the sea between them 
and their enemies, a march that was never perform- 
ed without a miracle, which is not claimed by the 
Bible. 

But there are difficulties fully as great as the 
lack of time, by which this passage must have been 
beset. Admitting the story of the division of the 
waters by the east wind, still, there must have been, 
as there always are, inequalities of bottom such as 
hollows, where pools of water would stand that the 
wind could not drive off, that must be forded, 
bridged or gone around. This could not be 
avoided. 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 101 

Again, though the "east wind might have laid 
the bottom bare, it could not have made it dry as 
the Bible asserts, and the hosts of Israel must have 
enjoyed on that occasion, (if there could have been 
any enjoyment in it), a regular " carnival of mud" 
the whole way. Doubtless, the people marched in 
advance of their flocks and herds. Indeed it must 
have been so, or they would never have got through 
at all. The first few hundred thousand might 
have had tolerably sure footing, but, as the constant 
tread of feet would tend to beat up the bottom, still 
wet, into yielding mud, their successors would find 
it more and more difficult to travel, as the mud be- 
came deeper, until long before the last defiles of the 
host had passed, the way would be so soft and 
beaten up that further passage would have been im- 
possible, except for the most robust and strong. 

Then follow the sheep and the goats, wallowing 
in their turn, their small feet sinking deeper in the 
soft earth than had those of their human predeces- 
sors, and putting still further from the surface a 
substantial footing. Lastly come the herds, " even 
very much cattle." Who that has seen, as the 
writer has, a few droves of cattle, not exceeding in 
the aggregate two or three thousand, driven after a 
long rain over a prairie soil in the west, has not 
observed that the mud in the highway has been 
beaten up so deep by them, that the herdsman 
has been obliged to turn a portion of them 
from the road into the fields, or on to the open 
prairie, to avoid their miring fast and being una- 



102 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

ble to extricate themselves But the Children of 
Israel had not a little western drove of only a 
thousand or two. They had " even very much cat- 
tle," to pass over this great, new highway of God, 
and two millions of human beings, and two mil- 
lions of sheep and goats have preceded them, and 
it is not supposed, since they must make the entire 
march of twenty-eight miles before morning, that 
they had time to stop and *' mend their ways" be- 
hind them, so, the poor herds, weak from long 
fasting must make the passage as best they can. 
They are heavier, and stir the soft bottom of the 
sea still deeper, and labor, and flounder, spurred on 
by their anxious drivers, but it is no use. A large 
portion of them must have been left behind, unable 
to travel through the impassable slush and mire that 
their predecessors had made for them. They could 
never have got through at all. No field or open 
prairie on either side offered them a better footing. 
All was water on the right hand and on the left. 
Suppose by miracle, (which is not claimed) they 
did make the passage ; the condition of the road 
over which they had passed must have been such, 
that Jehovah might have spared himself the trouble 
of taking off Pharaoh's chariot wheels, for they 
would have afforded a very desirable impedient to 
his progress under the circumstances, by sinking as 
they must have done, up to their axles in the mire, 
and, indeed, it is doubtful whether the charioteer, 
in the midst of the darkness and the mud, was a 
competent witness whether they were on or off. 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 10 



o 



That they must have been badly bemired is most 
certain, and it is doubtful whether straggling bands 
of Jewish cattle, to say nothing of sheep, goats and 
human beings were not in the same predicament. 
Surmounting the dif&culty of repressing ones 
humor, as he looks the matter full in the face with 
all its inevitable details, we ask the candid reader, 
is there the least reliability to be placed in the his- 
tory of the passage of the Eed sea, as a matter of 
fact or probability ? 

But we are not done. The Ilebrews had brought 
no provisions with them, except what had been tied 
up in their bundles, with their heavy trays and 
kneadinor boards, toiyether with their clothinof and 
the spoils of the " burrowing." It was not possible 
they could thus have carried enough to subsist this 
immense multitude, not for a day, but two weeks, 
at least, till they came into -Arabia. How did they 
live? The Bible makes none, but the meagre pro- 
vision of the dough in their bundles. The Bible says 
they lived; human nature says "give me no more 
than this, and I starve;" and no miracle was 
wrought to prevent the calamity, that the Bible 
tells of. 

How did the flocks and herds live. Two millions 
of sheep and goats, with "very much cattle," would 
require no small amount of pasturage each day, 
much more than could be found along any road, in 
that country, where such immense flocks and herds 
might be driven. It is, indeed, doubtful whether 
such an army of sheep, goats and cattle, could sqb- 



104 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

sist on the grass within reach on either side of the 
line of travel even over the most fertile sections of 
the western prairies, if the march were to continue 
from day to day without rest. They could not, at 
night, wander far enough ^for all to find a sufficiency 
of grass. A small drove of a few hundreds, or even 
thousands, might ; but when the number is swelled 
to hundreds of thousands, it amounts, not to a diffi- 
culty merely, but to an absolute impossibility. 

At night after a hard days drive, many would have 
to wander one half as far as they had been driven, 
before a sufficiency of food could be reached ; the 
stronger, of course, would hold the first ground, and 
those a little weaker the next, while those weakest 
of all, and least able to wander for food, would have 
to go the farthest. And if such a number could 
not be driven through a luxuriant country of prairie 
grass, and subsist, with*perpetual travel, where all 
was pasturage on either side, how could they sub- 
sist in a country well improved, with farms of dif- 
ferent kinds of grain that could not be used as 
pasturage, for the passing herds and flocks, and 
where regular roads were laid out, along which 
they must travel, increasing the length of the drove 
and diminishing the chances of their subsistence. 
In the year 1860, the state of Pennsylvania contain- 
ed about two millions of sheep, and half a million 
of milch cows. Put these all in a drove, and at- 
tempt to drive them through any cultivated section 
of the United States,and subsist them on the pasturage 
available along the way, and the utter falsity of the 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 105 

Mosaic account of the sheep, goats and the " very 
much cattle " of the Israelites being driven as the 
story tells, becomes apparent. 

Double the population of Philadelphia, and then, 
in a single night, empty it of all souls, transport 
them across the Delaware into New Jersey and cut 
of all communication with Pennsylvania, and let 
them subsist on what the country affords after one 
day's rations of dough is gone, let them be entire 
strangers, with no acquaintance, or sympathy with 
the inhabitants, and how would they live? Cer- 
tainly Jersey is as productive as Arabia is at pres- 
ent or has been in historic times. 

The flocks and herds would devour and tread 
down every living thing in the three counties of 
Gloucester, Camden and Burlington, the three 
richest farming counties in the United States, in a 
single day, leaving nothing of grain or vegetable 
whatever for man. The truck patches of Jersey 
would yield nothing as at present to feed the mul- 
titues. The flour, the meal, the pork — Ah! beg 
pardon, the Jews didn't eat pork — the poultry of 
the west, the fruits of Delaware and Maryland, and 
farther south, the fish from the river and the ocean, 
the groceries from the Indies all cut off, what ? pray 
tell us, theologians, but starvation would stare the 
people in the face ? And yet, this is precisely the 
condition, only worse, of the Jews in Arabia, after 
the passage of the Eed Sea. The country is not a 
'productive one. Travelers describe it as productive 
only in spots, and, if their representations be cor- 



106 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

rect, wholly inadequate to the support of such vast 
multitudes of men and beasts. Two months after 
leaving the Eed sea, they journey, before entering 
the wilderness of Sinai. In that sandy country, 
moistened only by spring rains, where all vegeta- 
tion dries up during summer, except such as grows 
in the vicinity of springs, such a host could not 
travel even, to say nothing of subsisting. The 
dust raised by the tramping herds would suffocate 
a large portion of them, and, were they in the 
advance, the people could not travel at all. It is 
utterly impossible to drive two thousand cattle, in 
a single drove, in the summer, when the roads are 
dry and dusty, without suffocating many of them 
every day by dust. Swell the number to a mil- 
lion of cattle, and twice as many sheep and goats, 
and, without a miracle, to drive them through the 
sands of Arabia without the loss of a large por- 
tion of them, would be an utter impossibility. But 
there was no miracle, and hence the story is not 
historically reliable. 

How did these people and their flocks and herds 
subsist during their long sojourn in the wilderness 
of Sinai ? It is described by travelers as broken, 
mountainous and rocky in the extreme, with few 
fertile spots, except the mountain gorges that are 
stimulated into a slight productiveness by the rains 
in the rainy season, but almost bare of timber at 
present, and probably has been in all historic 
times, which barrenness is owing to the climate and 
soil, and not, as some have supposed, to the chop- 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 107 

pitig down and burning of the primitive forests by 
the Hebrews during their sojourn in that locality. 
To subsist such a miltitude of people, and all their 
flocks and their " very much cattle," would require 
a miracle that would not only make the stones 
bread, but turn sand and rock into grass; other- 
wise, their subsistence was a perpetual miracle, 
which the Bible does not claim. 

In Num. 16. 1, we read " Now Korah, the son 
of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi." This 
would make Korah the third generation from Levi. 
By turning to Num. 3. 17, we read, " And these 
were the sons of Levi by their names, Gershom and 
Kohath and Merari." Yerse 19. " And the sons 
of Kohath by their families ; Amram and Izhar, 
Hebron and Uzziel." Suppose we recon four 
daughters in the family of Levi and allow them 
with each of the sons to have had as many sons as 
Kohath (though the Bible states that two had only 
two each), and we get, a ratio of eight as the rate of 
increase from Levi to Korah. This would give, for 
the third generation five hundred and twelve, at 
the time of numberinor the Levites, accordins: to the 
command of God, in Num. 3. 15. "Number the 
children of Levi after the house of their fathers, by 
their families, every male from a month old and up- 
ward shalt thou number them." Yerse 29. " All 
that were numbered of the Levites which Moses 
and Aaron numbered at the commandment of the 
Lord throughout their families, all the males from 
a month old and upward were twenty and two 



108 BIBLE m THE BALANCE. 

thousand." Here we have strange mathematics. 
The third generation from Levi, that of Korah, 
immbers but 512, and the next generation numbers 
no less than 22,000 males from one month old and 
upward. The conclusion is inevitable, if the story 
be true, that every woman of the third generation 
must have had no less than eighty-six sons, to say 
nothing of any daughters. But as two sons of Levi 
had but two sons each we may conclude that this 
estimate is not too high. Comment here is quite 
unnecessary. If the daughters are not reconed, the 
ratio would be reduced from eight to four, and the 
mothers of the third generation must have had 
172 sons each. 

In Exodus 85. 4, we read, " And Moses spake 
unto all the congregation of the children of Israel." 
Remember there were over two milUoris of them. 
One man ean be heard by ten thousand auditors, 
perhaps fifteen thousand, and if the atmosphere and 
the ground be favorable, he may, if possessed of 
good lungs and a voice of a proper key, be heard by 
twenty thousand; but when this number comes to 
be multiplied by one hundred, the thin^ is not only 
impossible but ridiculously absurd. By a miracle 
if such a thing ever occured, it might be done, but 
we have no right to call in such unauthorized aid. 
The Bible does not sanction it. In Levit. 8. 34, 
35, it is said, " And gather thou all the congrega- 
tion together unto the door of the tabernacle of the 
congregation. And Moses did as the Lord com- 
manded him; and the assembly was gathered to- 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 109 

gether unto tlie door of the tabernacle of the con- 
gregation. And Moses said unto the congregation, 
this is the thing which the Lord commanded to be 
done." flow can it be said that two millions of 
people were, or could be, gathered together at the 
door of the tabernacle or at the door of any edifice on 
earth ? They might be gathered together, and a 
few stand near the door, but when the whole two 
millions are brought together the immence con- 
course would stretch so far in the distance, that a 
trumpet voice, or even a clarion cry would scarcely be 
heard by the most distant. 

It is not here as in the former case, where Moses 
could stand in the centre and the people could 
gather on all sides of him. . Here they must all 
stand in front, and the column must be narrow at 
the door, and become wider as it recedes, but still, it 
is not true without a miracle, which was not 
wrought^ that Moses addressed them all, for but a 
small portion could have heard him; nor is it true 
that they were all gathered "at the door of the 
tabernacle." The story has no historical value 
whatever. It is untrue. But the most remarkable 
instance of the kind related in the Bible, is the 
last speech of Moses to the Children of Israel, just 
prior to his ascending the mount to end his days, 
and to the Hebrews crossing Jordan to the " prom- 
ised land." He is now a hundred and twenty 
years old, and the speech occupies no less than 
twenty-eight chapters of Duet, commencing with 
10 



110 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

the fifth, and closing with the forty-fourth verse of 
the thirty-second chapter. Here it is expressly 
asserted that this lengthy speech was delivered to 
the " whole congregation of the Children of Israel." 
Can any sane mind believe that a man one hun- 
dred and twenty years old could deliver so long a 
speech audibly to such an immense crowd of peo- 
ple? He that believes and asserts it to be true, 
must certainly be bold in the exercise of credulity 
and superstition. Such Jiistory cannot be reliable. 
It was never done. The Bible enumerates no less 
than thirteen different kinds of prominent sacrifices 
that were offered by the Jews, besides numerous 
smaller ones. Each of these had to be offered sepa- 
rately, by the priest^ and all upon a single altar^ and, 
in the preparation and offering of them, only three 
persons ofiiciated, or could officiate. These sacrifi- 
ces were all animals or birds, mostly the former 
and, from the lamb and the kid in size, up to the 
full grown bullock, and, after the portion for the 
sacrifice had been taken out and offered, in many 
instances, the remainder had to be carried by the 
priests entirely without the camp, and there burned. 
It is only necessary to notice one class of these 
sacrifices, and that is the offering for the purifica- 
tion of women after child-birth. The demands of 
the law in such cases, is given in Leviticus 12, and 
the offering consists of a lamb, a turtle-dove, and a 
young pigeon, or two turtle-doves, and two young 
pigeons, each of which must go on the altar sepa- 
rately. Allowing one-eighth as many families as 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. Ill 

there are inhabitants, there would be 250,000 fami- 
lies, and allowing a birth in each family once in two 
years, there would be 120,500 births annually, or 
daily, about 359. 

This would require three hundred and fifty-nine 
lambs daily, and, as many each, of turtle doves and 
young pigeons; or, in case the woman was poor, 
and could not afford the lamb, then two doves and 
two young pigeons. Here are demanded no less 
than two hundred thousand young pigeons and an 
equal number of turtle doves annually (for these 
birds were used for other sacrifices than the one 
■under consideration). How did they manage to 
keep all these birds in their brood cages in the wil- 
derness ? This may be easily answered by saying, 
that it was a small matter for each family to keep 
its own, but still how could there be offered on a 
single altar, no less than from 1,077 to 1,436 offer- 
ings daily, for women after child-birth alone, in ad- 
dition to the other regular and casual sacrifices? 
The thing is manifestly impossible. 

In a population of two millions, the voluntary of- 
ferings provided for in the law, could not have 
amounted to less than several hundreds daily. These 
must all be burned on the same altar. Then follow 
the various oblations, meat offerings, sin offerings- 
trespass offerings, &c., which only adds to the dut'n 
of the priesthood, with already more than they k^Q 
do, and, verily the tabernacle must have been Oi^ 
great slaughter house, the ground reeking with filt 
and gore of animals, the air constantly loaded wit' 



112 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

the stencb of putrefying animal substance mingled 
with the no less offensive odor of burning flesh ; 
God's " sweet smelling savor " (?) — while the priests, 
constantly besmeared with fat and filth, garments 
bespattered and stiff" with the clotted gore, locks 
matted, and faces begrimed with toil, and ashes, 
and blood, must have presented a spectacle of loath- 
some filthiness from the contemplation of which the 
mind recoils with disgust. It was'nt nice to be a 
priest. Were ever two thousand sacrifices burned 
npon that single altar daily ? Did those three offi- 
cials daily cut up and handle the sacrificial portions 
of two hundred bullocks and twice as many rams, 
goats, kids, lambs and birds, the " meat offerings," 
and did they eat all of the priest's portion as the 
*' Lord commanded Moses ? " Let us look at another 
matter. Several of the bullocks (some say all the 
animals) after having the sacrificial and the priest's 
portion removed, had to be carried by the priests, 
clear beyond the bounds of the camp, and there 
burned. The camp of Israel could not have been 
less than six miles square, with the Altar in the 
centre ; hence these two sons of Aaron had to travel 
at least six miles for every carcass thus removed 
and burned, and had all the carcasses been thus dis- 
uv)sed of, these two men could not have carried less 
them one hundred (perhaps three hundred) bullocks 
the (. twice as many other carcasses at least three 
yoiles to the place of burning, them, which 
pipuld make an aggregate of from two to four 
ratousand miles travel daily, and a heavy burden on 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 113 

the outward passage. If any man can believe tbis, 
it must be on the same evidence on which Turtul- 
lian predicated his belief in Christ's resurrection, "its 
utter impossibility." 

On one occasion the Israelites encamped where 
there was no good water, and certain wood was 
thrown into the waters, and they were changed 
from bitter to sweet ; (apochryphal !) but had it 
been the other way, the reasonable miad might 
have believed the story. What was the condition 
of the Hebrew camp, a camp covering at the least 
calculation forty square miles ? How did they dispose 
of all the ordure and filth of that traveling city H 
How did women and children and old age travel, 
many, at least four miles daily, to attend to the de- 
mands of nature ? "What the proprieties and decen- 
cies of life ? And what the sanitary condition of 
the outskirts of the camp, where vermin and pesti- 
lence were constantly bred upon the human excre- 
ments, kitchen oSal and other filth of the camp that 
could not have been disposed of by the ordinary 
means of modern sewerage ? 

Double the population of New York, triple that 
of Philadelphia, instead of three and five story 
buildings, let all tent on the ground, and all wood, 
all water, be brought from the stream outside the 
limits in one direction, and the ordure deposited in 
the opposite, and the mind has some idea of the 
condition of the Hebrew camp and its realities^ the 
story of which, however, fails to afford evidence of 
truthfulness. ■ Whatever of truth there may be in the 



114 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

stories, briefly reviewed in this cbapter, it is cer- 
tainly not too much to say that, probably, there is 
not in the range of history an equal number of 
pages that furnish ground for so much just criticism, 
doubt and downright disbelief, as the first five 
books of the Old Testament. Viewed scientifically, 
the mind arises from the perusal in supreme dis- 
gust. In its moral precepts and examples, when 
God speaks and acts, the truly just man and phi- 
lanthropist, feels little but horror at the outrages 
perpetrated by God and his people (?) against the 
rights of human beings. As a theological system, 
the anthropological character of its Jehovah is 
more that of a hero than a God, while its religious 
observances consist mostly of disgusting rites and 
useless ceremonies, the only incentives to the obser- 
vance of which are, personal emolument and na- 
tional honors 

Considered in the light of history, its extrava- 
gant statements defy all comparison, violate all 
precedent and experience, set at naught all idea of 
the necessity of accuracy, and to receive them as 
true, those of all other history must be regarded as 
apocryphal, the mind must be pushed into unmiti- 
gated extravagance, and reason lie prostrate in the 
dust. 



CHAPTEE YII. 
Bible Chronology. 

The value of history depends much upon dates 
and chronology. 

If these be wanting, historical accuracy need not 
be looked for. It is very doubtful whether the 
Jews, in the Old Testament, aimed at any chro- 
nology whatever, prior to the time of Solomon. 
That none is presented worthy the name, is most 
certain, unless we accept that most uncertain and 
confused manner of keeping a chronological record 
by generations, which the New Testament has pre- 
sented, in tracing the genealogy of Jesus back to 
Adam. According to the chronology of Arch- 
bishop Usher, which is the one commonly accepted 
by the Christian world, from Adam to Christ was 
4004 years. In (Luke ch. 3), the generations from 
Adam to Jesus are given as seventy-five. 

Allowing thirty-five years to a generation, which 
is above the ordinary estimate, we have only 2625 
years from Adam to Jesus, a difference of 1379 
years. About the generations, the Bible is posi- 
tive, and if correct as to the number, the average 
number of years to a generation was nearly fifty- 
three and a half, which no history ancient or 
modern justifies us in concluding. This difficulty, 
however, the Bible obviates by the assertion that, 
prior to the deluge, human life was much longer 



116 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

than after that event. But this increases, rather 
than diminishes the difficulty. 

From the deluge to Christ, was 2348 years, and 
42 generations, which would be almost 56 years 
to a generation, and from the deluge to Adam there 
are 1656 years, and 33 generations, which gives a 
trifle over 50 years to a generation. Prior to the 
flood, the average durationof human life, according to 
the Bible, could not have been less than 600 years; 
and subsequent to that event, only about a 100 
years, and yet it appears from the foregoing calcu- 
lations, based on the statements of the Bible, that a 
generation of men whose average length of life was 
six hundred years, was five years less than that of 
the times when they lived to be only 100. Here is 
a manifest inconsistency to which the reader cannot 
shut his eyes. 

Is it true that men ever lived to the extreme age 
of 900 years ? The Bible says they did, and gives 
the names of some. All other history, with the 
bare exception of the fanciful statement in the tra- 
ditions of the Hindoos, has failed to notice so extra- 
ordinary a fact, if it be a fact. From all we can 
learn from the history of the nations of the earth, the 
average of human life has never been greater than 
at present. According to the reports of life insu- 
rance companies, which certainly would be the 
highest possible authority on this subject, the 
length of human life is slightly on the increase in 
the United States and England, and doubtless, were 
the investigations extended to the other nations, 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 117 

results would only streng^then the induction based 
upon the facts already brought to light, that the 
duration of human life is on the increase, and that 
all such accounts of the longevity of man as the 
Bible contains, are fabulous and of no historical 
reliability. Still, it is generally believed that bibli- 
cal chronology is sufficiently accurate to warrant 
the belief that the creation of man took place about 
4001 years before our era, and, that about 1650 
years subsequently to that event, the great deluge 
of Noah swep all living beings from the face of the 
earth, except those rescued by the ark. This would 
not appear so flagrant a historical error, were it not 
that these dates conflict so palpably with those of 
other nations, and require us to believe those na- 
tions to be much younger than they claim to be, 
and have dates and events to show those claims to 
be well founded. That the Jewish or Old Testa- 
ment chronology is not reliable, before proceeding 
to the more positive proofs, the admission of a few 
of those who receive the Bible as the divinely inspired 
word of God, and are among the brightest orna- 
ments of the evangelical church of the present day, 
must be cited. 

Prof. Charles Lenormant, companion and disci- 
ple of Champolion Le June, a Catholic and professor 
of ethnology in the *' college de France," in his work 
published in Paris in 1839, pp. 8, 6, and 24, as 
quoted in " Types of Mankind," writes as follows : 
" It must be known that I wish to make public a 
monument, of which the interpretation, if this be 



118 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

admitted, will push back the bounds of historic cer- 
titude beyond everything that could have been im- 
agined up to this day. . . Because one must not dis- 
simulate. Monetho places Mencheres in the 4th 
dynastry, and the moderate calculation, if one fol- 
lows the ciphers of Manetho, makes the author of 
the third pyramid rebound beyond the fortieth cen- 
tury before our era. . . A monument of 6000 years ; 
and what a monument I We obtain the sum of 
sixty then, which, joined to the 4073, result of the 
preceding calculation, would give, to the end of the 
reign of Mykerinus, the date of 4136 before Christ." 
Chevalier Christian, C. J. Bunsen, the successor 
of Neibuhr as Prussian embassador to the court of 
Bome, and to Wilhelm von Humbolt to that of St. 
James, the pupil of Shelling and friend of Lepsius, 
in his invaluable work, " Egypt's place in Univer- 
sal History, London, 1858, vol. 1, pp. 1 and 2, pre- 
face, thus speaks : " The Eoman researches of Nei- 
buhr, the uncertainty of the chronology of the 
Greeks beyond the Olympiads, and that even Euse- 
bius' chronical as preserved in the American trans- 
lation, furnishes merely isolated, although impor- 
tant, dates for the Assyrian and Babylonian chro- 
nology beyond the era of Nabonassar. Again, as 
regards the Jewish computation of the time, the 
study of the scripture had long convinced me that 
there is, in the Old Testament, no connected chro- 
nology prior to Solomon. All that now passes for 
a system of ancient chronology beyond that fixed 
point, is the melancholy legacy of the 17th and 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 119 

IStli centuries, a compound of intentional deceit and 
utter misGonoeption of the principles of historical 
research." 

" Of course we must take our stand on Egyptian 
monuments and records including the language, and 
cannot make Biblical research our starting point." 
(Egypt's place in universal history, vol. 4, p. 378). 

" Egyptian history is the only one that possesses 
contemporary monuments of those primeval ages. 
. . , It is here if anywhere that materials are to be 
gathered for the foundation of a chronology of the 
oldest history of nations," (Ibid, vol. 1, p. 8). Pre- 
face. 

" The sum of the whole period from Menes to the 
ninth year prior to the conquest of Alexander the 
Great ranges between 4900 and 5400 years," (Ibid 
vol. 4, p. 83). 

" His, (Manetho's) historical work comprised a 
period of 3555 years from Menes to Alexander," 
(lb. vol. 1, p. 97). 

"For no man can deal honestly with the present 
chronology when he must go back to nearly 4000 
B. C, or to the Judaic date of the creation to ar- 
rive at Menes. And what do we find when we 
have arrived at Menes ? A united empire estab- 
lished upon a basis of long and progessive develop- 
ment, (lb. vol. 4, p. 402). 

"The Egyptians seem at first to have had a 
hierarchical government which lasted a long time, 
until Menes was chosen king, probably between 
2000 and 3000 years, B. C," (Ancient Egypt by 



120 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

Sir Gardner Wilkinson p. 807). The " melancholy 
legacy" of which Bunsen speaks, is the chronology 
of Usher and the few and unsatisfactory efforts 
made to discipher the monumental records of Egypt 
and restore her ancient history and chronology, 
made in those two centuries. 

In the work called " Primeval History," London, 
1846, by Kev. John Kenrick, aprotestant scholar of 
England, author of many standard works, also 
*' Egypt under the Pharaohs," 1850, pp. 56, 57, 58, 
61, 62, we find this very remarkable and significant 
language. " We must therefore acquiesce in the 
conclusion that the Hebrew copies represent the 
original and authentic text of the book of Genesis. 
On historical grounds, very formidable objections 
present themselves to the Hebrew chronology. 
The difficulties are still greater, when the Mosaic 
chronology is applied to the measure of profane 
history. It is not, however, in these difficulties 
alone that we find reason for doubting whether the 
genalogies of the book of Genesis, taken either ac- 
cording to the Hebrew or the Septuagint, furnish us 
with a real chronology and history. No evidence, 
therefore, remains, by which we can fix the interval 
that elapsed between the origin of the human race 
and the commencement of the special history of 
each nation. 

The consequence of the method that has been 
usually adopted, of making Jewish chronology the 
bed of Procrustus to which every other must com- 
pare in length, has been, that credence has been re- 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 121 

fused to histories, such as that of Egypt, resting 
upon unquestionable documents, and we have vol- 
untarily deprived ourselves of at least a thousand 
years which had been redeemed to us from the 
darkness of ante historic times." 

James Cowls Prichard, M. D., F. E. S., champion 
of the "Unity of Races" author of "Researches into 
the physical history of mankind," in Note 5, on the 
" Biblical Chronology," pp. 557, 560, 569, 590, says: 
" From this discrepency we may infer securely, as 
it seems to me, that the biblical writers had no re- 
velation on the subject of chronology, but computed 
the succession of the time from such data as were 
accessible to them. The duration, unless in so 
far as the knowledge of it was requisite for under- 
standing the divine dispensation, was not a matter 
on which supernatural light was afforded, nor was 
this more likely, than that the facts of physical sci- 
ence should be revealed. The result of this part of 
our inquiry is, in the first place, that a much longer 
space of time must have elapsed, than that allowed 
by modern chronologies, between the age of Abra- 
ham and the exode, and secondly, that generations 
have certainly been omitted in the early genealogies. 

By some it will be objected to the conclusion at 
which I have arrived, that there exists, according 
to my hypothesis, no chronology, properly so 
called, of the earliest ages, and that no means are to 
be found for ascertaining the real age of the world. 
This I am prepared to admit, and I observe, that 
11 



122 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

the ancient Hebrews seem to have been of the same 
opinion, since the scriptural writers have always 
avoided the attempt to compute the period in ques- 
tion. They go back as we have seen in the instance 
of St. Paul's computation, to the a^eof Abraham, at 
the same time, "using expressions plainly denoting 
that they make no pretentions to accurate know- 
ledge, and could only approximate to the true dates 
of events ; but they have in no instance, as far as I 
remember, attempted to carry the computation of 
time further back, nor has any one writer alluded 
to the age of the world. Beyond that event, (the 
arrival of Abraham in Palestine) we can never know 
how many centuries, nor even how many chiliads 
of years, may have elapsed, since the first man of 
clay received the image of God and the breath of 
life." 

Here we have five of the greatest minds of the 
age, thoroughly devoted to the interests of the 
church, and higher authority could not be adduced, 
yielding all claim to Biblical chronology. Still, 
many biblical readers and critics do believe that the 
Hebrews did have a regular chronology, but when 
this comes to be examined, the most diverse and 
conflicting results are arrived at. One version 
gives one date for the creation, and another another, 
and so of the deluge, the two great historical events 
mentioned in the Bible, giving rise to endless specu- 
lations and controversies, without the least possi- 
bility of arriving at any definite conclusion, or 
establishing a true date. 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 123 

To show how different versions and translations 
differ in dates, there is here introduced from 120 
different opinions, the following, tabulated by 
Hales, respecting the date of the Creation and de- 
luge. The Septuagint compilation places the crea- 
tion B. C. 5586 ; Sept. of Alexandria 5508 ; Sept. of 
the Vatican 5270; Samaritan Compilation 4427; 
Sam. Text 4305 ; Hebrew Text 4161 ; English Bible 
4004. According to Josephus, Playfair 5555; Jack- 
son 5484; Hales 5402; Universal History 4689; 
Talmudists 5384; Jewish Canon 4220 to 4184; 
Jewish Chinese 4079; Some Chinese Talmudists 
3761; Vulgar Jewish 3760; Seder 01am Eabbi in 
the " Great cycle of the world," published A. D. 130, 
3751 ; Eabbi Lipman 3616. 

Christian divines, Clemens Alexandrinus 5654; 
Hales 5411; Origin, in A. D. 230, 4830; Kenedy, 
Bedford and Furguson 4007; Usher, Lloyd and 
Calmet 4004; Helvetius and Marsham 4000; Me- 
lancthon 3864 ; Luther 3961 ; and Scaliger 3950. 

Among the Catholics, Suidas 6000 ; Nicpherous, 
of Constantinople 5500 ; Eusebius, of Cesarea 5200 ; 
St. Jerome 3952; Hilarion 5475; St. Julien and the 
" 70 " 5205, Hebrew Text 3834 ; St. Isadore 5336 ; 
Montanus 3848; Vossius 5590; Petavius 3983. 
From the conflicting results of these forty-three 
authorities one cannot regret the impossibility of 
Bunsen, Lenormant, Kenrick and Prichard being 
mistaken, when they assert that the Jews did not 
pretend to have any chronology, and thus save the 
Bible from the charge of such looseness and ambi- 



124 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

guity in the important matter of chronology. From 
the creation to the deluge Joseph us recons 2256 
years, Suidas, Nicpherous, St. Julien and St. Isa- 
dore 2242 ; Clemens Alexandrinus 2148 ; Hilarion 
2267; Yossius and Eicioli 2256 and Cornelius 1657. 
From the deluge to Christ, Septuagint version 8246; 
Samaritan Text 2998 ; English Bible 2348; Hebrew 
Text 2288; Josephus 8146; Vulgar Jewish 2104; 
Hales 8155; Usher 2848; Clement 2344. The 
readers good sense will tell him that any book, that 
gives rise to such a Babel of opinions, touching the 
date of two historic events, as a chronological his- 
tory, is not of the least value whatever. 

According to the Septuagint Version, which gives 
to the deluge the highest antiquity, that visitation 
of God's displeasure was made 8246 years before 
Christ. Did that event occur at that or any other 
historic time? To say nothing in this place of the 
physical impossibility of such an event, but to show 
an unbroken line of national history, not only over 
the latest but the earliest date of the occurrence, as 
well as all intermediate dates fixed upon by dif- 
ferent authorities, and the Noachian deluge is 
proved to be a fable and Noah a myth. Much pre- 
judice exists against early Egyptian, and other 
history, that may carry back the date of empires 
beyond the time of Noah. In proof of this prejudice, 
G. J. Wilkinson remarks, that he fixes the date of 
Menes, first king of Egypt, at 2201, B. C, but he 
might carry this date still higher, were it not that 
it would interfere with the deluge. The whole pas- 



BIBLE m THE BALANCE. 125 

sage reads thus : " I am aware, the era of Menes 
might be carried further back, to a much more re- 
mote period than the date I have assigned it; but 
as we have as yet no authority further than the 
uncertain accounts of Manetho's copyist to enable 
us to fix the time, and the number of reigns inter- 
vening between his accession and that of Apappus, 
I have not placed him earlier, for fear of interfering 
with the date of the deluge, which occurred in 
2348 B. 0." (" Topography of Thebes," by G. J. Wil- 
kinson, London, 1835, p. 506, Quoted by G. R. 
Gliddon in "Letters from Egypt" and published in 
the " New World," Feb. 1841, p. 52). This refusing 
to place Menes further back, is an evidence of great 
magnanimity on the part of Mr. W., but as the 
difference in time between the deluge and Menes is 
only 147 years, it might be interesting to the world 
to know from those who accept his dates, how 
many subjects Menes had at the founding of his 
empire. Certainly he could not have had many, 
the descendants of a single pair, and to have 
placed him chronologically much further back, 
he, Menes, might have ruled over his father 
long prior to his own birth. But Sir G. J. Wil- 
kinson is extremely at fault and inconsistent with 
himself, and out of all character as a critic, chro- 
nologist or even careful compiler. By the fore- 
going calculation in his *' Topography of Thebes," 
the dates stand thus : Deluge, B. C. 2348, Menes, 
2201, and the difference between them 147 years. 
But in his later work on the " Manners and cus- 



126 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

toms of the ancient Egyptians," London, 1837, he 
quotes Josephus and accepts his date of Menes 
" upwards of 1300 years before Solomon." Now 
Solomon began his reign B. C. 1015. This added 
to the 1300, would give for the date of Menes ac- 
cording to the accepted dates of Sir G. J. W., in his 
work last referred to, and uncontradicted in the 
second series of 1841, 2320, B. C. only 28 years 
after the deluge. 

A mere statement of these facts, is all so palpable 
an absurdity demands. This great author may not 
have " interfered with the date of the deluge," but 
he has certainly wiped out all local history of the 
Egyptians prior to Menes, as well as nearly all the 
history of Ham and his descendents, including their 
multiplication and labors around Ararat, the divi- 
sion of the land by Koah, and the migrations of the 
descendents of Ham to Egypt, the land of their adop- 
tion, leaving only the meagre events that could be 
crowded into the short space of 28 years. Abandon- 
ing all further controversy with authors who have 
a " system" to sustain, it may be interesting to the 
reader to see how authors disagree who reject, as a 
whole, or in part the only reliable Egyptian chro- 
nology, that of Manetho, which, although it has de- 
scended to our time in an imperfect and mutilated 
form, has nevertheless been restored, with undoubted 
accuracy, by Lepsius of Berlin, who had recourse 
the same monumental inscriptions from which 
Manetho had drawn the material of his chronology. 



4915. 


B. C. 


2567, 


B. D 


5867, 


(( 


3519, 


(( 


5702, 


(( 


3354, 


(( 


4890, 


(( 


2542, 


(( 


3643, 


u 


1295, 


a 


5303, 


(( 


2955, 


(( 


5773, 


{( 


3425, 


(( 


3893, 


(( 


1545, 


u 


3895, 


n 


1547, 


u 


3892, 


(( 


1544, 


u 


4400, 


a 


2052, 


(( 


2750, 


u 


404, 


(( 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 127 

These great authorities place Menes B. C, as 
follows. 

Lonormant, Paris, 1839, 

Champolion, " 1840, 

Bockh, Berlin, 1845, 

Barrucchi, Turin, 1845, 

Bunsen, Hamburg, 1845, 

Henry, Paris, 1846, 

Leseur, Paris, 1848, 

Lepsius, Berlin, 1849, 

Hincks, Dublin, 1851, 

Kenric, London, 1851, 

Pickering, Pbila., 1854, 

Gliddon, New York, 1844, 
or within a century of that time. 

According to Manetho's list of consecutive dy- 
nasties, Menes ascended the throne of Egypt B. C. 
5867. This, it must be remembered, is according 
to Manetho's unabridged list. Says, Mr. Gliddon, 
"Those ciphers, preceding the accession of the 16th 
dynasty, are doubtful, and the chronology is redu- 
cible, on the arrangement of Syncellus, into 443 
years." This would give for the first fifteen dy- 
nasties only 443 years, while for the next 15, a period 
of not less than 1881 years is given according 
to the same author, Mr. Gliddon. 

Thus we have from the birth of Christ to the second king of 
the 30th dynasty 359 years. 

From the 30th to the 15th dynasty 1881 years. 

From the 15th to the first dynasty, the accession of Menea 
443 years. 

Total from Christ to Menes 2638 years. 

This is according to the old chronical, says, Mr. G. 

By Manetho's chronology, Mr. G. says : 



128 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

From the birth of Christ to Alexander's conquest, 332 years. 
From the 31st to the 16th dynasty 2273 

Less the interval from Christ to Alex. 332 
Gives for the interval between Alexander and the 
16th dynasty, or the last 15 dynasties 1940 

From the 16th back to the first, or the first 15 dynasties 443 
Total of the 30 dynasties to the accession of Menes 2715 

One is struck with astonishment at this strange 
method adopted by Mr. Grliddon, to accomodate 
Egyptian, to a supposed Jewish chronology a (sup- 
position based, more upon ignorance of Jewish 
sacred history than a critical reading of the same), 
in thus mutilating Manetho by rejecting the ciphers 
of the first 15 dynasties. Why should Mr. Gliddon 
adopt this method of reducing dates, a method re- 
sorted to by Syncellus, a monk of Constantinople 
ten centuries ago, and for an obvious purpose ? It 
would seem that the result of rejectin.s: the ciphers 
of Manetho which Lenormant, (see his remarks on a 
preceding page of this chapter), would convince any 
mind that a great error had been committed some- 
where in the calculation. It will be obseved that 
the last 15 dynasties cover a period of 1940 years, 
and is it not strange that the first 15 should extend 
through 443 years only ? 

There is something humiliating, as well as ab- 
surd in this calculation of Mr. Gliddon, and it does 
appear that he might divide with Mr. Wilkinson 
the reproach of his own remark in regard to the 
latter, *' He is inconsistent with himself." He is 
also widely at variance with all the authorities 
cited above, and, apparently, as fearful of interfer- 



BIBLE IN" THE BALANCE. 129 

in? with tbe date of the deluo^e, as Sir G. J. Wil- 
kinson with whom he differs; but that difference 
arises, not so much from chronological calculations 
in which they disagree, as from the dates of the 
deluge taken from the different versions of the 
Bible used by them respectively. Mr. Wilkinson 
uses the English version and Ushers chronology, 
while Mr. Gliddon makes his calculation from the 
Septuagint compilation ; so, after all, the reconcilia- 
tion Mr. Gliddon claims, is the result of a discre- 
pancy of dates in different versions of the Bible, 
rather than from any error observed and corrected 
in Egyptian chronology. Mr. Wilkinson saj^s the 
deluo^e occured B. C. 2348, thus leaving^ but 23 

o » o 

years between that event and Menes, the first 
king of Egypt, which Mr. G. says is absurd. Mr. 
G. says the deluge occured in 8154: B. C, which 
leaves only 443 years for the first fifteen dynasties 
of Egypt, which is equally absurd. Allow as long 
a period for the first as for the last fifteen dynasties, 
and we shall be consistent at least; but fully supply 
the ciphers in Manetho's chronology, and with 
Lenormant, we shall see the " author of the third 
pyramid remount beyond the fortieth century before 
our era." Ilad no religious system been affected 
by it, it is but fair to conclude, that such a thing 
as reducing the chronology of Manetho, would 
never have been thought of. But all attempts to 
reduce that chronology have resulted, as in the 
cases of Wilkinson and Gliddon, in such a display 
of palpable absurdities, glaring inconsistencies and 



130 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

downright impossibilities, that the mind is relieved 
by the adoption of Manetho's date of Menes 5867 
B. 0. 

But this warfare is waged, not against the dates 
of Manetho alone ; those of astronomy are equally 
involved in the struggle. Champolion, Biot and 
others declare, that dates, procured from the tombs 
of the kings of Thebes, would carry back the use 
of the national calendar in Egypt to 8285 B. C. 

By the precession of the equinoxes as shown by 
astronomical dates found on the great dial of Den- 
dera, and from other dates corroborating those found 
at Esne, Fourier was satisfied that the zodiac had 
been in existence 5800 years, and Dupuis, that it 
had existed from 4000 B. C. a coincidence which 
renders it highly probable that they have arrived 
at the truth. (See Chambers Encyclopaedia, Arti- 
cle, Zodiac). It is not to be supposed that these 
astronomical dates are older than Menes, nor that 
the great stone dial of Dendera was brought from a 
foreign country and commemorated an astronom 
ical event that had transpired, and been thus recor- 
ded by the ancestors of the founders of the Egyp- 
tian empire ; but rather that it commemorated the 
exact positions of the heavenly bodies when it was 
made, and that this position was within the history 
of that people. This, again, throws Menes, accord- 
ing to these four great astronomical authorities 
just where Lenormant and others previously men- 
tioned historically and chronologically, place him, 
" beyond the fortieth century before our era." 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 131 

Thus Las astronomy preserved to us what Kenrick 
accuses us of surrenderning voluntarily, " one thou- 
sand years which unquestionable documents had 
redeemed to us from the darkness of ante-historio 
times." 

We may here rest the argument without refer- 
ence to the " Old Egyptian Chronicle," that claims 
84,201, years of history prior to Menes, the claim of 
the priests in the times of Herodotus, to 15,569 for 
the period of their empire, or 15,000 to the time of 
their king Araasis, or the 310 images of priests in a 
direct line of succession, from father to son, by 
which Herodotus computed a period of 11,340 years 
from Menes to his time, all of which must be looked 
upon as more or less apocryphal, and consider the 
fact fully established by incontrovertible evidence, 
that Egypt's first king was prior to the highest 
Bible date of the deluge, if not of Adam, and that 
that empire has preserved an unbroken chain of 
historic events, and a regular and uninterrupted 
succession of kings and dynasties over every Biblical 
date of that event. Couple this fact with the 
fabulous deluge in the days of Menu Satyvarata 
of the Hindoos, and consider at the same time the 
admission of Sir William Jones that " there was a 
connection between India, Egypt, Greece and Italy, 
long prior to the time of Moses," with Pocock's 
proof of Indian literature and theology in Egypt 
and Greece at a very ancient time, with the four 
evidences of Egyptian antiquity by Brace, and not 
only the avenue through which flowed a knowledge 



132 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

of the Hindoo avater, Krishna, to the the early 
christians, is opened, but also that through which 
flowed, to the ancient, Hebrews, the fabulous story 
of the deluge. No one who believes history will 
say, after reading this chapter, there is the least 
historical reliability to be placed in the Mosaic 
account of the deluge, having occured 2348 B.C., ac- 
cording to the English Bible, or 3124 B. C, accord- 
ing to the text of the " 70," or at any other time. 



CHAPTEE YIII. 
Pee- Adamite Monumen'tal History. 



By Prof. Charles Morris. 



Gazing from the standpoint of the present back 
through time, the modern grade of civilization ra- 
pidly declines, and, for many successive centuries, 
mental gloom overshadows the world ; mankind 
being long the bond slave of ignorance and bigotry, 
with a debased theology crushing out every germ 
of enlightenment. This, of course, refers only to 
Europe, as in parts of Asia there yet shone a faint 
glimmer of its ancient civilization, and in America 
flourished the unique communities of Mexico and 
Peru. 

Only that numerous books had come down from 
a more remote past, the uncritical nations of a few 
centuries back would perhaps have imagined civiliz- 
ation to be in its first growth, the world just emerg- 
ing from a primitive state of savagery ; unless 
indeed they had re-devised the old Greek myth of 
declining ages, from the happy golden age to the 
gloomy era of iron. The great stone relics of past 
nations had perhaps been ascribed to a pre-human 
race of giants, in the true barbaric view of thought, 
12 



134: BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

or else been called " Sports of Nature," as the Italian 
theologians of a century or so ago attempted to ex- 
plain the new found geological fossils. 

Tlie close study of the literary remains of Rome 
and Greece was then of great utility to the thinking 
world, in teaching mankind the antiquity of civiliz- 
ation, and that the world of thought was far removed 
from its infancy. The exquisite remains of the 
sculpture and architecture of Greece and Rome 
added to the admiration with which these empires 
were viewed, till the thoughts of Aristotle and the 
works of Phidias grew to be more important matters 
in the minds of scholars and artists, than the new 
and vigorous forces of thought and art then slowly 
awakening in the world. 

To Greece, however, was homage chiefly paid, 
for it was readily perceived that the civilization of 
Rome was in great measure the growth of a graft 
from Greece, implanted upon a race of warriors. 
Athens was to the Roman scholar what Rome is to 
the American artist, and the Grecian language had 
the standing in Rome that French has in the courts 
of modern Europe, Rome in fact doing little more 
for the thinking world that to put old Grecian wine 
into new bottles. 

Yet this all-important Attic community was a 
nation of artists rather than of actors. Their civili- 
zation ran in fixed grooves, and made little effort 
to widen itself. Such an egotist was Athens that 
she saw little worth knowing beyond the limits of 
Hellas. With all that was worthy in thought and 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 135 

deed within her borders what valued the doings of 
outer barbarians ? In consequence of this national 
pride and prejudice Greece claimed for herself the 
chief virtue of the world, permitting the history of 
her past to degenerate into fable and theological 
error, displaying no critical antiquarian zeal, but 
weaving tradition into a complicated web of mytholo- 
gy of which it is now difficult, in most cases impos- 
sible, to distinguish the thread. Not that the 
thinkers of Greece are to blame for this supineness, 
for they were as infidel to mythology as are many 
of our first thinkers to theology. But common 
history forced learning to keep in certain safe paths, 
and it was more dangerous then to question the 
divinity of Love than it proved in later times to 
doubt the fixity of the earth. 

From this lack of critical enquiry a thousand 
sources of archaeological information were allowed 
to perish, the literature and art of previous races 
forgotten, while of the few who wrote on antiquarian 
subjects the most important were not natives of 
Greece, and they have preserved us but a few tanta- 
lizing fragments of the probably great pre-historic 
literature. Many books were familiar to the Greeks, 
detailing the history of previous nations, and 
probably full of important information that might 
have given us the clue to the secret of Greek myth- 
ology, yet they have all been allowed to perish; 
of some we have a quoted fragment or two, of others 
simply the name and some idea of their subject, as, 
for instance, that ancient work of Thy m^etus of ''Asia 



136 BIBLE IN THE BxiLANCE. 

Minor," which Diodorus Siculus refers to in his ac- 
count of Bacchus, as written in a language older 
than the Greek. 

The loeal pride of the Greeks has been shared 
bj modern scholars, until the world has grown to 
look upon Hellenic civilization as a sun that sud- 
denly shone forth in full splendor on the mental 
midnight of mankind. This prejudice has been 
persistent and difficult to overcome. Herodotus, 
now accepted as a reliable historian, was long 
viewed unworthy of credit; fragmentary remains of 
Manetho, now found to agree with hieroglyphical 
records, were ignored; and no weight was allowed 
to the historical fact that the greatest scholars of 
Greece were those who had traveled into foreign 
lands, and from the lips of the Egyptian priests had 
learned the love of that most ancient realm. 

Yet civilizations are not born in a night. Yast 
edifices are not built without foundations. Our 
modern enlightenment needs all the past to bear it 
up, and, had not long precedent civilized communities 
left us the pith of their labor and thought, the world 
would still be in the dark ages. The gradual 
acknowledgement of this fact has awakened a purer 
and wider spirit of iuTestigation, and the world, 
once brought to doubt Hellenic reliability, is rapidly 
perceiving that civilization has made the tour of 
the earth in pre-historic ages, and has everywhere 
left its marks in indelible characters. 

In fact philological and historical criticism have 
been most vigorous idol breakers, and in their icon- 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. * 1C7 

oclastic zeal have had little respect for sacred tra- 
dition. Language is never ripe at its birth. 
There is nothing of slower growth than the art of 
expressing thought in words. From the germs 
of language in the use of a few nouns and verbs, 
arising from suggestive points in the appearances 
and movements of nature, to the full grown tree, 
with all its branching parts of speech, its embracing 
foliage of inflection, its poetical fruition ; how 
vast a period must have elapsed ! With all the 
modern skill in philology every effort to sway the 
course of a language has proved fruitless, and man 
ever drifts into new dialects helplessly and unknow- 
ingly. But our modern tongues are simply ruins 
of the intricate dialects of the past, which had 
reached at the birth of history a degree of gram- 
matical perfection which only a Greek or Sanscrit 
scholar can appreciate, what we call grammar, being 
but the shadow of its ancient self. 

There are three grand phases in the growth of 
human speech, through which every language must 
have passed. First, the use of monosyllabic ex- 
pressions, meagre and simple at their origin, but 
gradually becoming more diversified, and, by the 
aid of metaphorical significations increasing their 
expressiveness, but their grammatical forms re- 
maining of the utmost simplicity. Such a language 
we yet have in the Chinese, the conservatism of this 
ancient race being thus shown in its having faith- 
fully preserved its primary phase of speech, as it 
has clung to one form of government and one lo- 



138 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

cality from a period of the most remote antiquity. 

Their nomadic neighbors of northern Asia seem, 
in their incessant migrations, to have produced a 
migratory influence on their primitive speech. The 
original monosylables gradually clung together, a 
complex meaning being expressed by two or more 
words of simple meaning combined into one, and so 
by a slow process of agglutination arose the second 
phase of speech, the complexity of language increas- 
ing till a single long combination came to express 
a sentence of considerable intricacy. Such is the 
characteristic of the speech of the American Indian, 
and of the Turanian race of Asia and Europe. It 
must not be supposed that such tongues, though 
unwieldy, are inexpressive. The Chinaman finds 
no difficulty in making his abstract ideas intelligi- 
ble, while the Turk finds his language a ready 
weapon for his thought, however intricate it be. 

The third phase of language appeared when a mou- 
sy liable, which had been employed to give complex 
meaning to another, lost its separate existence in 
the language, and in most cases lost some of its let- 
ters, continuing to exist simply as a modifying form 
of speech. Such mutilated words, applied to one 
whole word after another, gave a fixed variation of 
meaning to each, and thus gradually arose the in- 
flexional form of human speech, represented in the 
past by the Semite and Arj^-an family of languages, 
and but fairly represented in the present, the 
modern tongues of Europe being but simplified 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 139 

ruins of tlie intricate syntax of their more ancient 
forms. 

The growth of inflexional language was probably 
a still slower process than that of the two preceding 
phases. The gradual evolution of the intricate 
inflection of the verb in ancient tongues, from this 
slow process of the welding together of words, and 
the degredation of one of them into an inflexional 
termination, must have occupied an excessively 
long period. So the growth of inflexional termina- 
tions of the noun, adjective, and adverb, the forma- 
tion of numerous affixes, the shading off of human 
expression into all the intricacy of the various 
parts of speech, the production of voice, mood, 
tense, etc., must have employed time almost inter- 
minable. 

For these complicated forms of language grew 
not from human design, but from the slow action 
of time and necessity on human modes of expression, 
so that the birth and advancement to its perfect 
form of every separate form of inflection must 
have been the work of centuries of unconscious varia- 
tion. Barbarians are in the highest degree conser- 
vatives, and the vast amount of unaware invention 
and radical change effected by these uncultivated 
races in passing from the simplest forms of the 
monosyllabic to the most intricate form of the in- 
flexional modes of speech, must have occupied a 
period of time, whose lowest limit in years must 
run far into the thousands, whose highest limit 



140 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

may reach back to the period assigned to the earliest 
*' stone " age of Europe. 

Yet at the dawn of history and literature we find 
man in possession of the most perfect forms of in- 
flexional speech, forms from which the history of 
language since exhibits but one long continued de- 
cadence. The oldest books we possess, the Indian 
Yedas, fragments of the literature of the ancient 
Persians, the Hebrew Scriptures, and the works of 
Homer, all display their language at or near its 
culmination. In Homer, who wrote at least from 
800 to 1000 B. C, the Greek language' displays a 
rich flexibility and power of expression which it 
never afterwards surpassed, a perfection certainly 
not achieved by a race lately sprung from rude 
barbarism. In the Hebrew writings we have the 
richest and most vigorous of the Semitic dialects. 
This tongue we are aware reaches far back of its 
earliest records, having once been identical with the 
Phoenician, and probably had grown to its perfec- 
tion, during long ages, on the anciently peopled 
plainsof Mesopotamia, whence both the Phoenicians 
and Jews probably migrated. In the Sanscrit Yedas 
we have an Aryan tongue surpassing in its richness 
of inflexional forms and of grammatical structure 
the Greek of Homer, and the later, classical San- 
scrit. Thus from a period of hoary antiquity comes 
to us the most nearly perfect language ever devised 
by man, if inflexional power and grammatical com- 
pleteness be the test of perfection of speech. The 
old Persian books composing the Zend literature, 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 141 

are of the same age as the early Yedas, and almost 
identical with them in language, being written prob- 
ably when the fathers of ' the Persians and Hin- 
doos dwelt together on the Bactrian plains, and be- 
fore their settlement of their present seats. 

Thus we jQnd man in times preceding the birth 
of history possessed of languages of the most per- 
fected character, and if to this we add the striking 
fact that nearly all the arts of civilization come to 
us from pre-historic times, that the origin of writing, 
architecture, sculpture, spinning, weaving, mining 
and working metals, is lost in the obscurity of the 
past, we can scarce avoid crediting mankind with 
an era of civilized existence of which the period 
from the birth of history to the present forms but a 
comparatively small fragment. 

But we entered into this digression simply to 
show that the Greeks were surpassed in various re- 
spects by those exterior races whom they chose to 
designate as barbarians, since the Sanscrit writers 
not only possessed a language surpassing that of 
Greece in its richness of inflexional forms, but they 
were adepts in the art of reducing it to its units and 
investigating its intimate structure, their literature 
possessing long and full grammatical treatises at a 
period in which the Greek writers scarcely under- 
stood the distinction between the noun and the verb, 
and were unaware of the full richness of the gift of 
speech elaborated for them through long previous 
ages, by their Aryan ancestors. 

Historical criticism is revealing equal evidence 



142 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

of the great antiquity of man. It is extracting all 
the scattered hints to be found ihrous^hout ancient 
literature that have any'bearing on the pre-historio 
ages. It has compared the interpretations of the 
hieroglyphics with the few written details of Egyp- 
tian history and found them to closely agree. It is 
slowly deciphering the cuneiform inscriptions of 
Assyria and Persia, which, when fully read, will 
probably add greatly to our historical knowledge 
of these parts. It is gathering a library of Hamya- 
ric inscriptions from Arabia which will doubtless 
aid greatly in elucidating the history of this country. 
It is slowly undoing the complicated tangle of my- 
thology and gaining thence many useful hints of 
ancient history. The mythical and legendary lore 
of the Greeks and the other Aryan tribes is proba- 
bly full of historical significance, though the origin 
and deeds of its characters are so thickly overlaid 
with poetical fable, and traditional facts combined 
so closely with personifications of the powers of 
nature, that we can do little more at present than 
doubt and conjecture. 

Yet numerous of the legendary heroes of Greece 
undoubtedly refer to individuals and deeds belong- 
ing to pre-Hellenic nations. Orpheus, Cadmus, 
Musaeus, and a host of others, were not Greeks, the 
Argonautic expedition, the adventures of Theseus, 
Hercules, and others, the seiges of Troy and Thebes, 
have little to do with Grecian history, though 
we are not on this account to class them all as fable. 
Through these legendary tales and mythologic 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 143 

names and adventures doubtless glimmer historical 
facts of ages long precedent, dim, distant ages 
whose kings have been transformed into Gods, their 
heroes into demi-gods, their history into mythology. 

Thus from a hundred sources are the streams of 
discovery flowing to form the great river of human 
knowledge. Comparative mythology and philology 
are leading us back to a very remote period when 
the fathers of all the Caucassian races of Europe, 
and of the Indian and Persian nations, dwelt 
together as one united race on the elevated plains 
of Central Asia, and are yielding us many details 
of the character and phase of civilization of this 
excessively ancient and long lost race, whose con- 
dition we gain from a knowledge of the words they 
needed in their daily intercourse, as such primitive 
tribes only name what they know and need. This 
is but one of the thousand doors of the great tem- 
ple of ancient mystery which are being gradually 
unlocked, revealing to us more and more of the 
past, and displaying the source of much of the 
thought that has come down to us strained through 
the vigorous mind of Greece. 

Athens has probably just claim to but a tithe of 
the glory she inherits. For all we know to the 
contrary the enlightenment of the communities of 
Asia Minor may have long preceded that of Attica. 
Homer, who died centnries before Athens rose to 
distinction as a centre of civilization, was a native 
of Asia Minor ; Hesiod, the next great poetic name 
of Greece, was the son of an Ionian father; in 



144: BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

philosophy it can claim the great names of Thales 
and Pythagoras; in history, of Hecateus and Hero- 
dotus; in poetry, of Terpander, Alcasus, Sappho 
and others. Here arose the most chaste and beauti- 
ful order of Grecian architecture, the Ionic; here 
were the admirable temples of Hera, at Samos, and 
of Diana, at Ephesus. In fact there is reason to 
believe that Ionic culture preceded that of Hellas in 
date, and originated that later mental glory of 
Athens, which in its growth has absorbed the repu- 
tation and almost the very existence of its illustrious 
ancestor. 

Back again of this community lies a civilized 
race of Phoenicians, whose origin is lost in the dim 
past ; who possessed a literature of which we have 
but a quoted fragment or two ; whose nautical skill 
was of the boldest description ; whose colonies 
peopled all known shores ; and whose cities were 
the emporiums of the world's commerce. Back still 
further loom up historical glimpses of yet earlier 
civilizations, the pre-Babylonian Chaldees, the 
Ethiopians, of whom the early writers had so vague 
and extravagant an idea, and other tribes, that fade, 
like dissolving views before our gaze, till blended 
in the immeasurable past into one whirl of unde- 
fined shadow. We have neglected to mention the 
claim of Chinese literature, which would make the 
civilization of that country at least 5000 years old, 
the statement of the Greeks that Zt^roaster lived 
6000 years before the time of Plato, and the estimate 
of Bunsen, from excavations made at the base of the 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 145 

statue of Rameses, tliat civilization existed in the 
Nile vallej more than 10,000 years before Christ, 
which are but some of the numerous reasons which 
entitle us to doubt Archbishop Usher's chronology. 

Fortunately, in our research into the long past of 
mankind, we are not confined to the evidence of 
words, for the deeds of the advancing nations lie 
thick upon their paths. Stone monuments of man- 
kind attest the former existence of flourishing 
nations in regions now the undisputed homes of 
savage tribes. Ruins of vast edifices are frequently 
the sole record of nations reaching so far into the 
past that neither history nor tradition yields a trace 
of their existence. We design to briefly glance at 
some of the more prominent of these remains, and 
at the light they throw on the important question 
of pre-historic civilization. 

A glance even at soil so well known to history as 
Greece and Italy tells us that these famous penin- 
sulas were inhabited by civilized nations long before 
the rise of Rome and Athens. The Cyclopean 
monuments are ascribed to a Pelasgian race that 
seems to have preceded the Latin and Hellenic 
Aryans in this region, but as to who these Pelasgi 
were, when they flourished, or what connection 
they had with these ruins, we are in complete dark 
ness. This we are sure of that the cities of Mycenae 
and Tyrens, with other well known Grecian cities, 
were founded by a previous civilized race, who 
have left their mark in walls of so massive strength 
13 



146 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

that they have survived the storms of more than 
8000 years. The walls of Tyrens are composed of 
huge irregular blocks, from 6 to 9 feet long 4 wide 
and 3 deep, which are rudely but strongly laid, 
without mortar. In the walls of Mycense and of 
Epirus the architecture is more advanced, the blocks 
though still of irregular shape, are closely fitted, 
with good joints. A next stage shows an approach 
to horizontal courses, as in other Greek and Italian 
cities. In the walls of Gosa in Tuscany the lower 
part is of the rough polygonal structure, the upper 
part of horizontal courses of hewn stone, similar to 
the Etruscan architecture. Near Mycenae stands a 
peculiar Cyclopean structure, known as Agamem- 
non's tomb. It is a cavernous edifice, shaped like 
the pointed end of an egg, and is built up of massive 
blocks of stone which overlap each other till they 
meet at the top, the projecting corners being subse- 
quently cut away to complete the elliptical curve 
of the interior. This peculiar style of building has, 
though found elsewhere, received from this and 
other Pelasgian structures, the distinctive title of 
Cyclopean Arch. The lintle of the doorway of this 
edifice is formed of a single immense stone 28 feet 
long, 17 wide and 4 feet 8 inches thick, its estimated 
weight beinof 174 Tons. How it was lifted and ac- 
curately fittted into its present position is a mystery 
well calculated to advance our ideas in relation to 
the mechanical skill of the ancients, who certainly 
showed a vigor and skill in the lifting of immense 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 147 

blocks of stone which it would tax us to emulate, 
without the aid of the steam engine. 

Besides these strong walls thej built canals, 
dams, and subterranean water works of massive 
strength and the most skillful construction. This 
people founded the oracles of Dodona and Pjthia, 
originated many of the Grecian deities, spread over 
a wide region from Asia Minor to Italy, and proba- 
bly owned for their great men many of the legen- 
dary heroes of Greece. They possessed the arts of 
ploughing, surveying and navigation, are said to 
have invented the trumpet, and were otherwise vig- 
orous and intelligent, but who they were, and how 
long they flourished before the rise of Hellas, no 
man is competent to say. 

On the sea coast of Syria, at a date probably 
reaching back beyond that of the Pelasgi, rose the 
great kingdom of Phoenicia, the most remarkable 
of the early civilizations which history presents to 
our view. At the period of the reign of Solomon, 
Tyre was in its glory, one of the most active »and 
enterprising cities of the past, sending out ships 
to all parts of the known world, with a boldness 
and skill in navigation never attained by the 
Greeks and Eomans. Its commerce was immense, 
luxury reigned throughout the city, its people were 
skilled in mechanical pursuits, and able to furnish 
Solomon with materials and mechanics for the 
building of his great temple. 

But Tyre, which according to Herodotus was 
founded about 2756 B. C. and which rose to impor- 



113 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

tance about 1209 B. C, was the latest of a succes- 
sive series of metropolitan cities. Before its rise to 
importance Sidon was for a long period the chief 
city of the Phoenicians, manifesting that splendor and 
enterprise afterwards transferred to Tyre. Back 
again of Sidon loom up other cities; Joppa, which 
the early Greeks call an Ethiopian city, the royal 
seat of Kephus, one of their legendary heroes; 
Arvad, built on the island of Ruad near the coast, a 
city named in Genesis, Marathos, a probably still 
older city, which flourished and gave the name of 
Martu to the whole region at the period when the 
very ancient Chaldean inscriptions were made. 
Still further back lay Berytus and Byblus, the 
capital cities of minor states ere the Phoenicians 
united into one community. Even further back 
history leads us to that excessively remote date 
when this people migrated from the shores of the 
Erythraean sea to their seat of future empire. In 
the time of Strabo temples, like those of the Phoe- 
nicians, yet remained on two islands in the Persian 
Gulf. This is all that history tells us of the people, 
whose origin lies hid in the deep mists of a remote 
antiquity. It is said that annals and state documents 
filled the archives of every large city, but of this 
extensive literature we have but a doubtful frag- 
ment of the record of Sanchuniatho, saved by 
Eusebius, fragments of the history of Tyre by Dius 
and Menander, and the narnes of others of their 
authors. All has perished. 

But of the ancient grandeur of Phoenicia its exist- 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 149 

iiig ruins are full of evidence, and the grandest of 
these are found at the sites of Arvad and Marathos. 
These, among the most ancient of their cities, must 
have attained an architectural splendor significant 
of a vigorous civilization, judging from their mas- 
sive remains. On the island of Ruad have been 
found the remains of the ancient wall which encir- 
cled the citj. These consist of immense blocks of 
stone, nearly eleven feet square and fifteen or six- 
teen long. There are here also ancient reservoirs, 
hewn in the solid rock, and still used by the people 
of the island. On the opposite coast of the main 
land lie the ruins of five other cities, called the 
" Daughters of Arvad," Paltus, Balanea, Carne En- 
hydra, and Marathos. These rose successively, 
being, with the exception of Marathos, intimately 
dependent on Arvad. Their remains now cover the 
coast on a continuous line of three or four leag^ues, 
forming a vast mass of ruins. Marathos, which 
seems to have preceded Arvad in date, forms the 
central point of a field of ruins nearly a league 
square. 

The Dominican Brocard, who visited this locality 
in the thirteenth century, speaks admiringly of 
''Pyramids of surprising grandeur, constructed of 
blocks of stone from 26 to 28 feet long, whose thick- 
ness exceeded the stature of a tall man." Ernest 
Kenan describes in these ruins " a vast court 156 
feet wide and about 180 feet long, scooped out of 
the rock in such a manner as to be level with the 
soil of the valley." Another rock hewn structure 



150 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

he describes as "an immense stadium, about 738 
feet long bj 100 feet wide. Ten rows of seats sur- 
rounded the arena, the stadium terminating in a 
circular amphitheatre, with two parallel passages 
communicating with the outside, probably to let in 
the chariots and horses." 

Throughout Phoenicia similiar massive architec- 
ture prevails. But what remains is little more 
than the foundation of the orisfinal structures, on 
which probably edifices in wood and metal were 
erected of a grandeur commensurate with the mas- 
sive strength of these ruins. If we glance back at 
this period ranging from 2500 to perhaps 4000 or 
5000 years ago, we find a people of reraakable cul- 
ture and enterprise for so remote a period, their 
ships reaching the most distant shores, their com- 
merce supplying the known world, flourishing 
colonies everywhere attesting their civilized vigor. 
About 1100 B. C, and 817 years before the founda- 
tion of Rome, they built the city of Gades, the 
modern Cadiz, which speedily became a new centre 
of maratime enterprise. Strabo says of this city, 
" Its inhabitants equip the greatest number of ships, 
and largest in size, both for our sea and the ex-, 
terior ocean." Near its site was the far more an> 
cient city of Erythia, which is mythically related to 
Hercules, perhaps founded by the very ancient 
navigator, deified under this name, who first sailed 
throuorh the straits of Gibraltar and discovered the 
exterior ocean. Near by seems to have been a city 
of similar antiquity, simply traditional in the time 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 151 

oFStrabo, named Tartessus, probably the Tarshisli 
of Scripture, celebrated for it ships. 

The Phoenicians have left Dumerous traces of 
their presence in Scandinavia, and their mental in- 
fluence is seen in the Runic letters of the ancient 
inscriptions of the Northmen, which are of un- 
doubted Phoenician origin. To their presence also 
may be due the commencement of the Bronze Age 
of northern and western Europe. They traded far 
down the western coast of Africa, and are estimated 
to have had 300 towns and cities on this coast. 
They have left several indications of their habit of 
circumnavigating Africa. Herodotus tells us that 
the Egyptian King, Necho 11, who reigned about 
600 B. G., fitted out an expedition, for the purpose 
of sailing from tlie Red Sea around Africa, and re- 
turning to Egypt by the Mediterranean. The 
Persians seem to have attempted to perform the 
same feat, and its possibility must have been gener- 
ally known. There is reason to believe that they even 
crossed the Atlantic to America. DiodorusSiculus, 
speaks of ^'a very great island, over against Africa, 
in the vast ocean, many days sail from Libya west- 
ward," and relates its discovery by a Phoenician 
ship driven from the African coast, " by a furious 
storm, far into the main ocean ; and, after they had 
lain under this tempest many days, they at length 
arrived at this island." They described it as pos- 
sessed of a very fruitful soil, and having towns 
adorned with stately buildings, with gardens, 
orchards and fountains. That this account refers 



152 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

to America we have every reason to believe from 
tlie many indioatious displayed by the ancients of 
their knowledge of this continent. 

The Chinese and Japanese undoubtedly knew of 
it. Humboldt believes that Plutarch spoke of it, '^ 

in his " Great Continent " beyond the Ocean. Theo- 
pompus speaks of a great continent beyond the 
Atlantic larger than Asia, Europe and Libya com- 
bined." The ancient Egyptian story of the island 
of Atlantics can only refer to America. 

The Egyptian priests of Sais told Solon that the 
Greeks knew nothing of antiquity, and gave him, 
from their own annals, some account of the history 
of the far past. It was from these notes of Solon 
that Plato derived his account of the Atlantic Island, 
the knowledge of which must thus have been of ex- 
treme antiquity. We have evidence to the same 
effect in the, old American traditions, architecture 
and relig^ion. 

Eastward still in this old world of civilization 
stand the skeletons of other ancient cities. Palmyra, 
Baalbec and Petra, though of historic date, origi- 
nated in a period beyond the birth of history. The 
art and strength of their builders had done its 
greatest work before history discovered them. The 
ruins of the great temple of Baalbec, entirely pre- 
historic in date, remain one of the wonders of the 
world. The main wall of this stupendous structure 
is unequaled for massive grandeur by aught beside 
in ancient or modern architecture. Three of its 
stones in particular are of so huge dimensions as to 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 153 

hold all travelers spell-bound in wonder. These 
vast masses of stone, each between 60 and 70 feet 
long, and variously estimated from 12 to 17 feet 
wide and from 9 to 12 thick, thus weighing over 
1000 tons each, stand at an elevation of 20 feet in 
the wall, and are fitted with the accuracy of the small 
blocks of a modern building. Truly the possession 
of great mechanical skill is no monopoly of modern 
times. The rock sculptures of Petra are more 
modern in date. They display a remarkable skill 
in the hewing of stone, certainly not derived from 
Greece from which they obtained the most of their 
arciteotural forms. 

In that almost unknown region lying eastward 
of Damascus are the remains of many cities of the 
past. Some of these are almost uninjured by the 
hand of time, displaying a unique species of archi- 
tecture, their doors, formed of single flat slabs of 
stone, swinging on stone hinges as readily to the 
hand of the modern traveler as to the hand of their 
founder. For thousands of years these founders 
have been dust, and it is with an undefined awe 
that the traveler explores the deserted apartments 
of these strange edifices, mausoleums of the dead 
past. 

Still eastward, in the flat region between the 
Tigris and the Euphrates, in which flourished the 
great empires of Assyria and Babylonia, Layard 
has laid bare the ruins of ancient Nineveh, display- 
ing to the modern world in a thousand forms the 
art and skill of the old civilized races. Babylon 



154 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

has left far less trace of that splendor with which 
the pen of Herodotus environs the great capital of 
Mesopotamia, having been built of a more perish- 
able Ynaterial, and having probably served as a vast 
storehouse of bricks for the builders of more modern 
cities. The date of the glory of these empires 
reaches far within the historic times, though the 
story of their origin is not preserved, even by tra- 
dition. Sir Henry Eawlinson states that he formed 
an Assyrian canon which fixes a date in Assyrian 
history at 1650 B. C. 

But these are the modern times of Mesopota- 
mian civilization. To the south of Babylon lies the 
land of ancient Chaldea, a populous civilized em- 
pire that had probably long flourished ere the rise 
of the empire of Assyria. This region has been 
but partly explored, and the ruins of its numerous 
cities and villages will probably richly reward the 
labors of future antiquarians. These ruins are sim- 
ply huge mounds of sun dried bricks that have 
fallen and been massed together in almost indis- 
tinguishable ruin, only here and there traces of 
ancient walls and terraced platforms being discov- 
ered. There is no stones here and kiln burnt bricks 
are found in but few of their edifices, walls of im- 
mense thickness and great solidity being built of 
masses of dried clay. Some of these walls have 
been laid bare, and display a species of architecture 
the most primitive yet found among the ancient civ- 
ilized nations of the east, but interesting as showing 
the original forms of columnar architecture. Loftus 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 155 

describes the wall of the Wuswas ruin at Warka 
as having groups of seven half columns repeated 
seven times along the wall, these being the rudest 
perhaps ever reared, but built of moulded semi- 
circular bricks, and securely bound to the wall. 
" The entire absence of cornice, capital, base, or 
diminution of shaft, and the peculiar and original 
disposition of each group in rows like palm logs, 
suggest the type, from which they sprang. It was 
evidently derived from the early mode of construct- 
ing wooden edifices. "Above the three central 
columns of each group rests a stepped recess one 
.and three-fourths feet deep, surmounted by a larger 
and a smaller crescent — a sacred emblem of Chal- 
dean worship." The entire front had been coated 
with white plaster from two to four inches thick. 
The brick exterior wall of the palace of Ehosabad, 
at Nineveh has been found to present a modified 
representation of this wall of the Wuswas, showing 
the influence of the rude Chaldean architecture in 
the more modern empire. 

These ancient cities seem to be also immense 
cemeteries, the mounds yielding great numbers of 
oddly shaped clay coffins, in which are found nu- 
merous ornaments, of the dead, frequently of gold. 
Numerous clay tablets, covered with cuneiform in- 
scriptions have been found, and great numbers of 
clay cylinders, their whole surfaces closely inscribed. 
It is to these books of the ancient Chaldeans that 
we must look for some future idea of their history, 



15G BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

and they have already been deciphered sufficiently 
to yield some important information. 

That this enterprise of Chaldea reaches back to a 
period of the most hoary antiquity we have many 
reasons to believe. It is said that Callisthenes, who 
accompanied Alexander to Babylon, sent from that 
city to Aristotle a series of astronomical observations 
extending back to a period of 1903 years in the 
past, thus reaching to the year 2234 B. C. Aristo- 
tle, unfortunately, allowed them to perish, thus de- 
priving science of a most important treasure, for 
the Chaldean astronomers had advanced in the art 
far beyond the rude beginnings of early nations, and 
had arrived at conclusions significant of an advanced 
degree of civilization. Aristotle tells us that they 
had for many years made observations on the occul- 
tations of the planets. Ideler, quoted by Humboldt, 
says: "They knew the mean motions of the moon 
with the exactness which induced the Greek astron- 
omers to use their calculations for the foundation of 
a lunar theory." Ptolemy made use of a portion 
of their observations. Diodorus Siculus says that 
they attributed comets to their natural causes, and 
could foretell their reappearance. Seneca says that 
they classed comets with the planets, or moving 
stars with fixed orbits. They originated the zodiac, 
or the division of the ecliptic into twelve parts, 
measured time by astronomical cycles, and possibly 
possessed telescopic aid, as Layard found a lens of 
considerable power in the ruins of Babylon. 

Thus over 4000 years ago this ancient people 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 157 

were making correct observations of the planets, 
and knew their importance so well as to impress 
them on clay tablets, and treasure them up for the 
benefit of the future. It is much to be hoped that 
a duplicate set of these tablets maybe* found in 
some of their ruined cities, as it would be of invalu- 
able service to astronomy. 
14 



CHAPTEK IX. 

Pre- Adamite Monumental History. ( Continued). 

Berosus, a Chaldean priest of Belus, wrote, 300 
B. C. a connected history of Chaldea, which has un- 
fortunately been allowed to perish, only some quoted 
fragments remaining. That his history was cor- 
rectly taken from ancient preserved records, there 
is no good reason to doubt. He furnishes a list of 
163 Chaldean sovereigns, of various dynasties, 
ending with the establishment of the Assyrian em- 
pire about 1273 B. C. Previous to them he hints 
at long antediluvian ages. Of these reigns he gives 
the period of 8 Median Kings at 224 years, and of 
9 Arabian at 245 years. If the reigns of the others 
were in any similar proportion it would place the 
beginning of the list at a period more than 6000 
years before Christ. 

The later writers of the Bible introduce to us the 
rulers of Babylon and Nineveh, and the monarchs 
who made " Sheeshan the Palace " their royal seat. 
This very ancient city is now represented by the 
ruins known as Lusa or Shush, vast mounds of 
earth and brickwork lying in a district to the east 
of the Tigris, the remains of a city of unknown an- 
tiquity, though it flourished when the. books of 
Daniel and Esther were written, and has left numer- 
ous fragments of stone columns of peculiar but 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 159 

beautiful architecture as relics of its later period. 
But the days of the glory of the older Chaldean 
cities were past long before this later Hebrew- 
period. To find a contemporary history of these 
cities we must go back to the earliest Hebrew docu- 
ment extant, that remarkable work of an ancient 
and unknown author known as the Book of Genesis; 
Here we get some tantalizing glimpse of a state of 
things preceding the rise of Assyria, vague hints at 
various nations of whose antiquity the chronology 
of Genesis is no reliable indication. Prominent 
among these stands ancient Chaldea, on whose well 
irrigated plains the patriarch Abraham fed his 
flocks, as does the nomadic Arnb of our day. Here 
was the kingdom of Nimrod, the mighty hunter. 
His city of Babel, which has been long considered 
to mean Babylon, is thought by Sir Henry Eawlin- 
son to be represented by the ruins at Nipur, where 
he identifies the legendary Tower of Babel with the 
remains of a conical brick tower, still 70 feet high. 
The Erech of his kingdom is considered to be 
identical with the extensive mass of ruins called 
Warka; while Sir Henry Eawlinson has identified 
the ruin at Mugeyer with the Biblical "Urof the 
Chaldees," having read its name, as Hur, on the 
commemorative cylinders of the founders, such as 
are found in all the Mesopotamian ruins. 

The city of Ur seems to have been the oldest 
city of the country, so far as research indicates, and 
we are, fortunately, able to approximate to its 
date. It is supposed to have been built at the 



160 BIBLE IN" THE BALANCE. 

mouth of the Euphrates by a colony of Ethiopians, 
the inscriptions being full of evidence of this fact. 
Eawlinson, whose interpretations of the cuneiform 
characters establishes hind as the highest authority, 
locates it on the Persian Gulf. Yet it is now 150 
miles from the sea, the Gulf having retired that 
Tlistance before the sediment brought down by the 
Euphrates and Tigris. So extensive a geological 
change is indicative of an immense period of time ; 
less so in this case, however, than in any other, as 
the delta of these rivers increases at a rate une- 
qualled elsewhere. Loftus says that since the com- 
mencement of our era the land has gained upon the 
sea at the extraordinarv rate of a mile in about 70 
years. Yet even with this valid growth over 
10,000 years must have been consumed in placing 
Ur at its present distance from the sea. 

The low and marshy character of these plains, 
which are sometimes so overflown as to threaten the 
city of Bagdad with being swept bodily away, seem 
to hint at a natural cause of the great Deluge re- 
corded in Genisis. An unusual rise of the rivers, 
produced by the long period of heavy rains de- 
scribed, might readily flood these plains with an in- 
undation sufiicient to sweep away the whole Meso- 
potamian world. In fact the story of the Deluge is 
of Chaldean origin ; Berosus gives it in nearly the 
words of the Bible, as occurring in these plains. 
That tradition locates the Tower of Babel in Chal- 
dea, also lends force to this suggestion. Every 
year the land between the two rivers, in their 



BIBLE IN THE BALA^'CE. 161 

lower course becomes impassible, in consequence 
of its extensive flooded marshes. 

Possibly, then, the antediluvians of Scripture 
were the great men of early Chaldea. Eden is a 
locality in this fertile land, from which the first 
born man upon the earth went out to the settled 
land of Nod, to get him a wife. This mention of 
a land of Nod where wives were to be had so soon 
after Adam's advent seems a slight inadvertence in 
the Hebrew scheme of creation. What we have 
designated as possible Sir Henry Rawlinson's late 
declaration to the British Association renders pro- 
bable. Certain Babylonian inscriptions read by 
him give " The Garden of Eden" as the ancient 
name of Babylonia, describes its four rivers exactly 
as they are named in Genesis, and, among other 
interesting points of analogy give a description of 
the deluge and of the building of the Tower of Babel. 
On this very interesting subject he promises a more 
detailed account. AVithout doubt the Mesopota- 
mian inscriptions, which comprise " whole libraries 
of annals, and works of science and literature," will, 
when fully read, add very greatly to our knowl- 
edge of the past. 

But who were those mysterious Ethiopians, who 
figured so largely in the traditions of the past, but 
on whom history does not venture to lay her hand ? 
That early Chaldea, Ethiopia, and Southern Ara- 
bia, were closely connected is testified to unmista- 
kably by the inscriptions. Eawlinson says : "The 
ships of Ur are constantly mentioned in connection 



162 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

witb those of Ethiopia." Loftus states that "The 
Hamitic element which prevails in the most an- 
cient cuneiform records throughout Babylonia and 
Susiana points to Ethiopia as the country of these 
new settlers." 

This most ancient of all known civilized races, 
the Ethiopian, seems to have preceded the Phoeni- 
cians in maratime enterprise, and had spread their 
empire, at a date preceding history, "from India to 
the Pillars of Hercules." Homer describes the 
Ethiopians as " dwelling at the ends of the earth, 
towards the setting and the rising sun." Stephanus 
of Byzantium says: "Ethiopia was the first estab- 
lished country on earth, and the Ethiopians were 
the first who introduced the worship of the Gods, 
and who established laws. The country described 
under the name of Cush in Scripture, and usually 
translated Ethiopia, seems to refer to Arabia, and 
the old Sanscrit geographers refer to this peninsula 
under a similar name. Mr. J. D. Baldwin, a recent 
writer on this subject, has rendered it not improba- 
ble that Ethiopia was located here, instead of in 
Africa, as commonly supposed. His main reasons 
are the favorable location of Arabia for the growth 
of a maratime race, and for the subsequent Cushite 
migrations to Phoenicia, Chaldea, India, Egypt and 
the west. Palgrave's discovery that Central Arabia 
is an extensive and fertile table land, thickly popu- 
lated adds to the force of his hypothesis. Certain 
it is that this whole peninsula is covered with 
ruins, and abounds with ancient inscriptions. The 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 163 

ruins so far examined, however, seem much less 
antique than those of Chaldea. At Nakab-el-Had- 
jar Lieutenant AVellsted found the remains of an 
immense wall, built round the base of a consider- 
able hill, and flanked bj square towers. It was 
formed of a greyish marble, the large blocks of 
which were hewn and fitted with the utmost skill. 
The slopes of the hill were covered with remains 
of edifices, some of which displayed evidences of 
the greatest antiquity, resembling strongly early 
Egyptian ruins. 

He describes other ruins of equally interesting 
character. At 'El Belid are what Fresnel calls the 
"splendid ruins" of a city supposed to be the 
Saphar of the Hebrew Scripture. The blocks of 
stone here are cut with admirable nicety, showing 
the greatest architectural skill in the builders. Sev- 
eral days' journey in the interior lie extensive ruins 
of the ancient city of Saba, a city of the utmost 
importance in the past times of Arabia. Arnand, 
a French explorer, who visited this locality in 1843^ 
heard of the ruins of another ancient city at a day's 
journey. He also examined the remains of a famous 
dike, an exceedingly massive structure, which was 
built across a depression between two mountains. 
This solid structure is of so antique a date that, 
according to tradition it was already in ruins in the 
time of King Solomon, and was repaired by Queen 
Belkis, a monarch who, as tradition relates, was the 
Queen of Saba, or Sheba, who visited Solomon. 
Mr. Palgrave found in the interior of the country 



164 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

the wall of an old castle built of huge but well 
squared stones, its windows displaying the Cyclo- 
pean arch. He also found an ancient structure 
similar to Stonehenge in England. 

There is no reason to doubt that Arabia was in- 
habited of old by a race distinct from its present 
Semitic rulers, speaking a different language, which 
is preserved in the Hamgaric inscriptions found 
throughout the country. Dialects of this old tongue 
are still spoken in the eastern districts, as also in 
Eastern and Northern Africa. Palgrave is enthu- 
siastic on the mental capacity of the settled inhabi- 
tants of Central Arabia, describing them as " one 
of the noblest races the earth affords," "as endowed 
with remarkable aptitude, for practical and material 
science," and simply kept back in the intellectual 
race by lack of communication with other coun- 
tries. 

Of that remarkable country to the west of Arabia, 
we need say nothing, the stupendous monuments of 
ancient Egypt being too well known to need from 
us a word of description. In the land of wonderful 
architecture, and highly advanced civilization, his- 
tory vainly seeks to penetrate the mists of time, 
and learn the story of its origin. The Great Pyr- 
amid, that most mountanious work ever reared by 
human hands, mocks at every effort to discover its 
origin, while the Sphinx defies any modern QEdipus 
to solve its riddle. When Grreece first rose to a 
commanding position in the world of the past, the 
civilization of Egypt was already hoary with age, 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 165 

the days of its glory were past, and its long decline 
had commenced. All the Greeks who visited this 
land testified to its great antiquity, and found its 
monuments as mysterious as they are to us. In the 
days of Abraham and his immediate descendants, 
Egypt was a populous and probably very ancient 
realm. Manetho, the accuracy of whose history is 
substantiated by the readings of the hieroglyphics, 
fixes the reign of Menes, who first visited Upper 
and Lower Egypt under one government, at 8893 
B. C. Yet at this remote period the Egyptians had 
attained a high grade of mechanical skill, some of 
the grandest of the Egyptian monuments being 
built in the earliest dynasties. Previous to this 
monarch we have no history nor chronology of 
Egypt, but "the great mathematical skill of the 
Egyptians in his time," as shown by his changing 
the course of the Nile, seems to prove " that many 
ages of civilization had preceded his accession," and 
lend no little support to the result of Bunsen's ex- 
cavations at the base of the statue of Rameses, 
which yield evidence that Egypt was inhabited by 
a race possessing some degree of civilization, 11,660 
years before Christ. 

There have lately been discovered, on some small 
islands in the Grecian Archipelago, traces of an an- 
cient race, probably older than the earliest civilized 
Egyptians, certainly much preceeding in date any 
of the historical or traditional inhabitants of the 
surrounding country. The small islands of San- 
borin and Therasia, present cliffs 1200 feet high, 



166 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

whose slopes are covered to the deptli of more than 
a hundred feet with a Hght, friable tufa, or pomice 
stone, of volcanic origin. The pumice has long 
been quarried, and great quantities of it were sent 
to Port Said, during the digging of the Suez Canal, 
as, mixed with lime, it forms an excellent cement, 
and was largely used for this purpose. 

The quarries however were obstructed beyond a 
certain depth, by the occurrence of regular lines of 
large blocks of stone, which caused the workmen 
to avoid going too deep. But M. Christomanos, 
Professor of Chemistry in the University of Athens, 
had further excavations made, and these lines of 
stone laid bare. To his surprise they were found 
to be the walls of ancient houses, and the fact was 
soon established that underneath this mountain of 
tufa lay the villages or cities of an antique race, 
who dwelt upon the original surface of the islands, 
long ages ago in the past. The ruins give evidence 
that they were gradually buried under a great vol- 
canic eruption, to which are due the vast beds of 
tufa which now cover the whole district. This 
eruption is undoubtedly of very great antiquity. 
The whole present surface of the island displays 
numerous traces of the presence of the Phoenicians 
who dwelt here 1500 years before Christ, without 
suspicion that a much older race lay buried beneath 
them. 

The walls are formed of large blocks of unhewn 
lava, laid without mortar, the interstices being 
filled with a red volcanic sand, while long stems of 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 167 

olive wood are built at intervals into the walls. 
The roofs were probably formed of great beams, 
overlaid with slabs of lava, and supported, in one 
instance, at least, by a wooden upright, placed upon 
a stone block in the centre of the floor. At Ther- 
asia, where the main excavations have been made, 
the ruins have yielded numerous utensils of the old 
inhabitants, and the skeleton of one unfortunate in- 
dividual overwhelmed by these eruptions. These 
utensils consist of vessels of lava and earthenware? 
flint tools, and other implements of a rude race. No 
trace of metal is found, with the exception of two 
small rings of gold the inhabitants seeming to have 
belonged to the later stone age. The pottery is of 
various kinds, and differs in pattern from any 
Greek, Etruscan, or Egyptian pattern. It frequently 
contains barley, peas, anise, and other vegetable, 
substances, thus evidencing^ ao^ricultural habits in the 
people. There have also been found hand stones 
for the grinding of their grain, disk shaped prefor- 
ated stones such as are now employed in weaving, 
and various other untensils. As evidence of 
mechanical and artistic skill extensive subterranean 
galleries, and the base of a colossal prismatic 
column formed of well cut blocks of stone have been 
found. 

This discovery is as interesting in its kind as 
was that of the Swiss Lake dwellings, with the 
Stone Age of which the Therasian cities may have 
been contemporary. Undoubtedly as many mys- 
teries of the past lie buried here beneath mountains 



163 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

of tufa as were found in Switzerland beneath lakes of 
water, and will probably prove more interesting, as 
displaying a higher degree of architectural ability. 
It may be possible that undreamed of marvels await 
here the eyes of future investigators; so that, as in 
Herculaneum and Pompeii we see the home life of 
Rome, in this new discovered victim of the volcano 
we shall see the home life of people who perished 
ages before Rome was born. 

Western Europe is not without its monuments of 
a pre-historio civilization, and though these are of 
the rudest character as compared with the Western 
Asiatic ruins, yet they are very interesting both 
from their peculiarities and their evidence of great 
mechanical skill. These monuments, which have 
been called Celtic and Druidical for want of a 
better name, consist of open stone circles which pro- 
bably formed the temples of the ancient inhabitants. 
The principal of these in England are the great 
stone circles at Aveburv and Stonehens^e, the former 
older in date, and much more extensive, covering 
originally an area of twenty eight and half acres. 
At Stonehenge is a circle of huge monoliths, some 
of which, 20 feet high, yet remain erect. Horizontal 
stones of similar dimentions reach from top to top 
of these vertical blocks, and are accurately fitted to 
dovetails in their summits. If we consider that 
these stones weigh some 30 tons each, that they 
have been brought from a distance of at least 16 
miles, and bodily raised 20 feet in to the air, we 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 169 

may in a degree realize the vigor and skill of their 
builders. 

On the sandy plain of Carnac, in France, at a 
point far removed from any rock locality, stand 
more than 5000 such stones, (they formerly num- 
bered over 10,000). These are ranged in three par- 
ellel rows along the coast, some of them measuring 
22 feet hisrh, 12 wide and 6 thick. Numerous other 

O 7 

traces of human workmanship are found through- 
out this region, known as cromlechs, dolmens, bar- 
rows, mounds, &c. Of these the cromlechs consist 
in some cases of flat stones weio^hino^ over 120 tons, 

Do I 

which have been raised and planted on uprights 
previously fixed in the ground, forming huge, rude 
altars. 

The Celtic hypothesis of the origin of these ruins 
is hardly reconcilable with the fact that fac-similes 
of Stonehenge are found in Southern Arabia, in the 
realm of a race not even Aryan, much less Celtic; 
and with the additional fact that remains similar to 
the cromlechs and dolmens are found in India, 
where they are supposed to be older than the Aryan 
invasion. 

This peninsula of Hindostan and the adjacent 
large islands, Ceylon, Java, &c., are remakable for 
the vast aggregate and unique character of their 
ruins. 

The first faint glimmer of history finds the San- 
scrit race in full possession of India, which they had 
probably held for a long period, long enough for the 
15 



170 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

most complete change to affect their language. But 
we have the evidence of their own Yedic liter- 
ature, as well as that of their language, to show that 
they originally migrated from the home of the 
Aryans in Central Asia. Previous to this remote 
period Hindostan was inhabited by a civilized peo- 
ple, whose language is still represented by the 
Dravidian dialects of Southern India, and to whom 
there is much reason for ascribing its most wonder- 
ful works of art. This most ancient people were 
probably in their turn a colonizing race. We have 
the authority of Ephorus that "the Ethispians oc- 
cupied all the southern coasts of both Asia and 
Africa." Eawlinson says : " Recent linguistic re- 
search tends to show that a Cushite or Ethiopian 
race did, in the earliest times, extend itself along 
the shores of the Southern Ocean from Abyssinia to 
India. The whole peninsula of India was peopled 
by a race of this character before the influx of the 
Aryans." Many other writers, ancient and modern, 
bear testimony to the same effect. 

The Aryans were very long in establishing them- 
selves throughout India, and never attained the con- 
plete predominance in the Deccan that they did in 
Northern India. Yet it is in this southwestern re- 
gion, the precise locality for a colony migrating by 
sea from Arabia or Africa, that the most remark- 
able ruins are found. The Aryans themselves bear 
witness to the fact that their predecessors lived in 
cities built of stone, and seem to hint at their indul- 
gence in the Phallic worship which is associated 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 171 

with these old temples. The excavated temples 
seem devoted to. the worship of Siva, none of them 
being dedicated to Bhrama or Yishnu. Now the 
Siva of the Hindoo Pantheon is undoubtedly a late 
importation, made to reconcile the religious differ- 
ences of the land, the God Siva being older in India 
than the Aryans. Many believe that Baddhism is 
likewise older than Brahmanism in India, the his- 
torical Buddha beinsr but the latest of a series of 
Avatars, and they point to wooly headed statues of 
Buddha at Elephanta and Lalsette, accompanied by 
the figure of a shi p, as evidence that B uddhism origin- 
ated with an early maratime race of African extrac- 
tion. It is also said that in the excavation at Karli, 
made in hard claystone Porphyry, the statues of 
Buddha are so worn by atmospheric action as to be 
scarcely recognizable, a fact indicative of the most 
remote antiquity. 

The most striking of these Indian monuments of 
the past consist of rock-hewn temples of stupen- 
dous dimensions. Of these the temple at Elephanta, 
forms one, a cavern hewn in the solid rock 130 feet 
deep by 123 wide, exclusive of various attached 
rooms. 26 pillars and 16 pilasters support the roof. 
The walls originally were beautifully stuccoed. 
The excavations on the island of Lalsette are far 
more extensive, and similar hewn caverns are found 
at Karli and other points, some of them made in a 
clay stone porphyry than which there is no stone 
harder and more diffloult to work. 

These temples possess a simple grandeur of the 



172 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

most striking character. At Ellora a later and 
more ornate style of excavation is found. In this 
locality the flat side of a mountain is cut into a 
maze of chambers of the most diversified character. 
Here are halls, temples, bridges, porticoes, and cells, 
all cut deep into the solid rock, and richly embel- 
lished by statuary, bas-relief, and inscriptions, form- 
ing a bewildering variety of cavernous structures, 
unequaled elsewhere in the world. Not even a 
tradition remains of the date or use of these tem- 
ples. The Yedic books do not mention them, and 
the popular mind views them in simple wonder 
without attempting a theory of their origin. 

Elsewhere in India are excavations of city like 
extent and of the greatest variety. Thus at Mavali- 
puram are the ruins of a city the greater portion 
of which is overwhelmed by the sea, but of which a 
large portion remains on a hill at some distance 
from the shore. This city is mostly excavated in the 
rock, though it displays remains of Cyclopean walls, 
built of immense stones. Another species of con- 
struction consists of the Pagoda, a species of pyra- 
midal structure, usually dedicated to Siva, thus 
probably due to the early race. That of Tanjore, 
the most beautiful of these monuments, is 200 feet 
high, and contains the statue of a bull, 16 feet long 
and 12 high, cut from a single block of brown por- 
phyry. The Pagoda of Chillambaram is built of 
huge blocks of stone, weighing 60 tons each, which 
have been brought from a distance of 200 miles. 
The buildings here are of immense size, and richly 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 173 

ornamented. In one of the great pyramids forming 
the gateways are singular festoons of stone chains, 
each of which contains 20 links and is cut from a 
single stone 60 feet long. These Indian remains, 
however, are too numerous and diversified for us 
to describe them even in the most cursory manner, 
the whole land being covered with them. 

In Cevlon and Java are also extensive ruins, the 
former island containinsr numerous dikes of massive 
masonry, which are built across the mouths of val- 
lies, forming lakes in some instances over 20 miles 
in circumference. There is no visible outlet to 
these lakes, yet unseen sluices are supposed to regu- 
late the flow of the water in a mode unexplainable 
by modern engineers. Similar tanks are found in 
Southern India, and in Arabia, where the great 
dike at Saba is not the only instance. 

In the more northern regions of Asia antique 
remains are abundant. Afo^hanistan has remarka- 
ble rock hewn monuments of very ancient date. In 
Toorkisan are numerous ruins of the past, of which 
those at Balkh date from early Aryan days. At 
one locality in the Keighiz region of the northern 
steppes, Atkinson found erect pillars of so immense 
size as to utterly dwarf the columns at Stonehenge. 
The antiquities of China are too well known to 
need description. Many of its works of art are 
known to be of the most hoary antiquity, and it 
has records of its existence as a civilized nation 
trenching close on the period assigned for the origin 
of the human race. As for the vast monuments of 



174 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

ancient America, found in Peru, Mexico, Yucatan, 
and the United States, their origin is probably 
much nearer our own times, and they are too nu- 
merous and varied to leave us room for a descrip- 
tion. 

Thus we find that in an age preceding the dawn 
of history all southern Europe and Asia, with the 
fertile belt of Northern Africa, were peopled by 
races of considerable advancement, whose mark re- 
mains in the most massive ruins, which evidence 
great mechanical skill, vigorous powers of design 
and achievement, and considerable artistic ability 
in their builders. It certainly conforms illy with 
the established chronological views, that nations, 
that passed their prime, and in some cases entirely 
disappeared, in pre-historic ages, had at this remote 
period attained so advanced a civilization, which, 
whether originated by a single race, or from the 
combined efforts of all the world, must certainly 
have occupied thousands of years in its growth. 
We need but glance at these evidences of civiliza- 
tion to see the force of this remark. Only great 
skill in the employment of the mechanical powers 
could have carried and lifted the great blocks of 
Stonehenge, or such gigantic masses as that called 
the Bagneux Fairy Rock, near Saumuo, France, 
which is 23 feet square and over 3 feet thick, yet 
has been lifted bodily and placed upon upright 
stones. What barbarian hands could erect so vast 
block as those above mentioned as found in a Kirs:- 
hiz valley, one of which measured 75 feet high, 24 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 175 

wide and 19 thick, and must weigh over 2600 tons, 
yet were undoubtedly erected by human hands. 
In India specimens of colossal architecture are 
abundant. In Persia the ruins of Persepolis yield 
in the walls and steps, stones of the greatest dimen- 
sions. At Nineveh huge blocks of gj^psum have 
been lifted to the level of high platforms and built 
into the palaces. In Balbec are stones yet vaster, 
whose grand dimensions we have already given. 
Egypt presents instances of massive architecture 
unequalled elsewhere. 

Herodotus tells us of a monolithic temple, cut in 
a single cubical block, 60 feet in each dimension, 
and which, if its walls were cut down to a thickness 
of four feet, must have weighed 5000 tons. It was 
covered by a huge flat stone weighing probably 
over 2000 tons. Yet he describes this as existing 
in the Delta, at a long distance overland from any 
similar rock. In Mexico and Peru, in the western 
continent, similar massive architectural remains are 
found, displaying the Cyclopean arch and other re- 
semblances to Eastern architecture. As further 
evidence of skill in mechanics some of the huge 
blocks in the Egyptian walls are raised in positions 
in which no use could have been made of the in- 
clined plane, and other more difficult measures must 
have been adopted. 

The architectural ability displayed in these edi- 
fices rivals the mechanical skill shown in their 
erection. The architecture of the present has in 
many respects made no advance beyond the point 



176 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE, 

reached by these old builders, and the grand Grecian 
edifices display but a graceful employment of forms 
and modes of building employed in pre-Hellenic 
times. "We stand surprised before the bare ruined 
walls and columns of these edifices. Could we see 
them as the}'" were in their perfect condition, our 
surprise would be changed into admiration such as 
few modern buildingrs can elicit. 

Their achievements it the cuttinfy of stone are of 

O 

the most stupendous character, and it will ever be 
a source of wonder how the old Egyptians hewed 
such mountains of rock into shape with no harder 
metal than bronze, from which their tools seem to 
have been made. In sculpture they appear to have 
been equally proficient, displaying a knowledge of 
art and a cultivated taste of the highest order. 
True these forms lack the finish and grace of a 
Greek statue, but they are full of nature, and fre- 
quently give a calm grandeur to the human face, 
which only genius could have attained. 

We are obliged to confine our remarks to such 
evidences of their civilization as are wrought in im- 
perishable stone, or in the equally durable form of 
burnt clay, for all less enduring material has 
perished in the flooding waves of time, and of these 
vast stone monuments but fragments remain, such 
wreck does man and the elements make of all mun- 
dane things. But from the powers displayed in 
what we have we can form some judgment of the 
worth of what we have lost, by supposing a modern 
city to fall into ruins, and imagining what would 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 177 

be left of it to reward the labors of antiquarians 
3000 years hence. 

Among their advances in the arts of civilization 
the most important, and probably one of the great- 
est, was the art of writing, to which nearly all these 
nations had attained, and, fortunately for us, had 
sufficient pride in their nationality and belief in the 
value of their discoveries to desire to make the 
future aware of them. As they had not learned the 
art of printing they engraved their history upon 
the walls of their palaces and temples, or stamped 
it into clay tablets, abundance of which inscriptions 
remain to the present day, and are being slowly de- 
ciphered. These inscriptions are also useful as 
revealing to us the condition and connections of 
language at that early period, and the growth of the 
art of writing from its origin in hieroglyphic forms 
to its advanced condition in the Phoenician alphabet, 
the ground- work of all our modern alphabets. 

The walls of Persepolis are covered with inscrip- 
tions in the Persian Cuneiform characters. At 
Behistun the face of a mountain is smoothed off and 
made the page of the book on which king Darius 
wrote his history. This gigantic inscription is in 
three forms of the cuneiform or wedge-shaped writ- 
ing, the Persian, the Babylonian, and the Median, 
and has been of the greatest service in the decipher- 
ing of other inscriptions in these last two classes of 
characters. The inscription is coated with a sili- 
cious varnish much harder than the rock itself. 

Abundant cuneiform inscriptions, have been 



178 BIBLE IN" THE BALANCE. 

found at Nineveh, Babylon, Susa, and the Chaldean 
cities. Among these latter Hamyaric inscriptions 
have been found, similar in character to the exceed- 
ingly numerous inscriptions found in Arabia and 
Syria, to which the name of Hamyaric has been 
given. Of the numerous inscriptions on tbe Egyp- 
tian temples and tombs no mention needs to be made 
except that the earliest edifices of Egypt display the 
hieroglyphic characters in their perfection. 

But the ancients were not limited to the use of 
stone for the preservation of their annals. They 
possessed great numbers of manuscript books, of 
which the great bulk have unfortunately been lost, 
but of which several of the utmost importance re- 
main, these having opened to us a new world of 
ancient history. Fortunately for the science of 
philology and history the Brahminic priests of India 
faithfully preserved their sacred books, written in 
the Sancrit language, the recovery of which lies at 
the basis of modern philology, while the historical 
and mythological records preserved in the Kig Veda 
have given us information, not attainable from any 
other source, in regard to the origin, the original 
seat, the mode of life, and the mental condition, of 
the Caucasian races, whose descendants form the 
great civilized nations of the modern world. Be- 
sides the Yedic books the Indians have preserved 
a large number of works, embracing every depart- 
ment of literature, and significant of high mental 
culture in their authors. 

The Persian branch of the Aryans had also its 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 179 

ancients books, but few of which, however, have 
survived the ravage of time. Those remaining — 
the fragment of a translation of the Desatir, and 
portions of the works of Zoroaster — are probably as 
old as the Rig Veda, and both were probably written 
while the two Eastern tribes of the Aryans yet 
dwelt in Central Asia, the capital of the Iranians 
being the city of Balkh, the capital city of ancient 
Bactria. The Greeks place the period of Zoroaster 
at 6000 years before the death of Plato. However 
that be it is certain that these books, written before 
the origin of the Persian nation, are of immense an- 
tiquity. Had we all the old Iranian histories the 
darkness of the past would prbbably be strongly 
illuminated. The Dabistan mentions 20 or 30 such 
ancient books of which no trace remains. This 
ancient chronicle places the reign of Gilshahat 5371 
B. C, and names four dynasties of kings preceding 
his reign, each of which continued for a long time, 
and were divided by long periods of anarchy and 
confusion. The settled dynasties are spoken of as 
happy, as prosperous, and as lasting many ages. 

The Dabistan expressly says, that " between 
Yasaw," — the founder of the fourth dynasty — "and 
Gilshah, there must have elapsed multiplied and 
numerous generations." If then we even take 
Ferdousi's later, and less reliable date for the reign 
of Gilshah, 3529 B. C, or Sir William Ouseley's 
estimate as the mean of various dates in the Jehan 
Ara, 3436 B.C., these Ion f]: dynasties still lead us back 

I ' CD ^ 

to an excessively remote period. Yet numerous set- 



180 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

tied provinces are described in these ancient books, 
showing a long continued state of settled nationality* 
So the old Sanscrit geographical works, though con- 
taining an absurd scheme of the world, display con- 
siderable knowledge of geography, not only describ- 
ing Arabia, Egypt, and other equally distant coun- 
tries, but giving maps of which Wilford says : " Here 
we may trace the Bay of Biscay, the German Sea, 
and the entrance into the Baltic ; but above all, the 
greatest resemblance appears in the arrangement of 
the British Islands and Iceland ; this surely cannot 
be merely accidental." They also plainly refer to 
England and Ireland, the former under the name of 
the "White Island." Such a degree of geographi- 
cal knowledge at so early a period is more than our 
ideas of chronology have prepared us to expect. 

China, too, possesses an ancient literature which 
gives us numerous dates of considerable reliability. 
Thus it places the establishment of the Chinese cy- 
cle of 60 years in the 61st year of Hoang-ti's reign. 
The year 1863 completed the 76th cycle, thus fixing 
the beginning of this monarch's reign 4628 years 
ago. In his reign the magnetic needle was invented, 
and civilization greatly advanced. Previous to his 
reign several long dynasties a^e recorded, with a 
description of the various sciences and arts which 
they cultivated, the earliest of these monarchs 
having been interested in astronomy, religion and 
the art of writing. Previous to this period long 
fabulous and mythical ages are mentioned, which 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 181 

probably, like all fable and mythology, point to tbe 
acts and thoughts of previous races of men. 

The books possessed by the nations of Western 
Asia seem to have been less fortunate. There is no 
reason to doubt that the Phoenicians possessed an 
extensive literature. Josephus says, " there were 
(in his time) records among the Tyrians that took 
in the history of many years, and these were public 
writings kept with great exactness." Other wri- 
ters testify to the same efiect, yet not even the 
fragment of a book in the Phoenician language has 
been preserved. Some few quoted extracts are all 
that remain of this literary store, w"hich, had it been 
preserved, would without doubt have revealed the 
source of much of the later Greek literature. Per- 
haps the richness and beauty of the Homeric poems 
may owe something to the preceding culture of 
Phoenicia. Of the Assyrian literature we are fortu- 
nate in possessing the remains of an ancient library, 
whose books consist of closely inscribed clay tablets, 
and which treat of a variety of subjects, among 
which grammar is most prominent. The literature 
of ancient Egypt was not all contained in the in- 
scriptions which so profusely cover all their walls, 
and are found in every place where a sculptured 
inscription can be well introduced, nor in the 
written Papyri which have been recovered. These 
written documents are the few remains of an exten- 
sive array of ancient works, forming great libraries. 
The rooms of the library of Eameses the Great, de- 
16 



182 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

scribed by Diodoras Siculus, have been found and 
recognised by Champollion. He even found the 
tombs of two librarians, each named the " Chief 
over the Books." At the doors stood formerly the 
Gods of Wisdom and History, and behind them the 
deities of hearing and seeing. Probably all the 
temples had their libraries of annals. A priest at 
Sais said to Solon, during his visit to Egypt 2500 
years ago : " You Greeks are novices in knowledge 
of antiquity. You are ignorant of what passed, 
either here or among yourselves, in days of old. 
The history of 8000 years is deposited in our sacred 
books ; but I can ascend to a much higher antiquity, 
and tell you what our fathers have done for 9000 
years — I mean their institutions, their laws, and 
their most brilliant achievements." That the 
Egyptian priest was honest in this declaration we 
have, the results of Bunsen's experiments on the 
Nile alluvium in evidence. 

All the indications we have given seem to point 
to the fact that long previous to the growth of civili- 
zation of the Aryan tribes, there existed a family 
of men who had attained to a high degree of civili- 
zation, and who have left their most significant 
marks on the shores of South-western Asia and 
North-eastern Africa, and in the peninsula of India. 
This race is vaguely spoken of in the earliest histo- 
ries and traditions as Ethiopian or Cushite, though 
but a name is given, no detail of their original loca- 
tion or history, they having spread out in numerous 
and flourishing colonies ere history recognizes them. 



BIBLE m THE BALAN"CE. 183 

They differed from the Assyrians in being a sea- 
loving while the latter were a land-loving people. 
This early race is associated with the ship and with 
the sea god, and their migrations were made by 
sea, as is shown in the fact of their colonies being 
established on the coast, while the Aryans, making 
long land marches, settled in the interior. More- 
over we find their descendants, the Phoenicians, to 
have been the great maratime people of antiquity, 
the early Greeks being astonished at the great ships 
with which they ploughed the Mediterranean. The 
Southern Arabians who, in Baldwin's hypothesis, 
are the direct descendants of the original Ethio- 
pians and occupy their native seat, have also long 
been adventurers upon sea. 

Three thousand years ago this civilization of the 
far past had reached its state of rapid decline. How 
long it flourished, and the ages of its slow growth, 
who shall declare? Traces of the stone age of the 
primitive savage have been lately found in Egypt, 
in that wonderful country where the culmination of 
the later stone age remains in the Great Pyramid. 
How long a time elapsed between the date when 
the chipping of a flint into the rude shape of an 
axe was man's highest achievement to the date of 
the carving of the great spinx, no man can hope to 
estimate. All our modes of computation can do no 
more than place a lesser limit to the length of this 
period. But the greater limit who shall declare, or 
who name in years the time that has elapsed since 



184 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

the savage of the early stone age of western Europe 
chipped his rude flint tools, or since the Neander- 
thal skull was the habitation of a living soul ? 



CHAPTEE X. 
The Testimony of Geology. 

Until within a few years, the science of geology, 
still in its infancy, was thought to be an incompe- 
tent witness in matters of date and chronology. 
To-day, amid the many echoes that come to us 
from the dusty sepulchres of the past, where whole 
cities lie buried, not only in the drifting sands of 
many a desert, but beneath the wash of sea, and 
river, or the accumulated peat of many a lake, that 
was, and is no more, mingled with the historic 
voices of stone records that have survived in defi- 
ance of the nibbling tooth of time, and the corro- 
ing power of the elements, the voice of geology is 
heard in clear and unmistakable accents high above 
the rest, as it proceeds from the profound depth of 
the ages, clothed in a language that the simplest 
can read, a language that is its own translator, and 
rounded up into tremendous periods that make the 
dynasties of Egypt but a day, and Egypt herself 
but a speck on the great disk of the centuries. 

To establish a theory upon the devolopments of 
geology is, to-day, as legitmate as to establish it upon 
any other of the indefinite sciences. It was formerly 
claimed that all the geologic changes in the crust 
of the earth had been produced within six thousand 



186 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

years, the age of tlie world, according to tlie Bible. 
But when ten and seven -tenth njiles are taken as 
the average thickness of the fossil bearing rocks, 
and the fact is known that this immense stratifica- 
tion is the result of previous disintegration by the 
slow process of aqueous and atmospheric action, and 
subsequent induration, the mind leaps at once, the 
puny barrier of six thousand years, only to find 
itself lost in the interminable lapse of the centuries 
that flood the great geologic calendar. Eeceding 
from the first position of six thousand years for the 
entire age of the world, the next position is, that 
man was created about that time ago, when the 
present order of things commenced. This geology 
shows to be incorrect; for, had such a change from 
the old to the new taken place at that or any other 
time in the earth's history, the rocks would indicate 
it as a marked epoch. Old forms would have 
ceased to be produced and the new ones would have 
appeared suddenly. But such is not the case. Old 
faunae and florae have disappeared by slow degrees 
and been replaced by the new, by a process equally 
slow, and many new have made their appearance 
before the entire disappearance of the old, so that the 
line of demarkation between any two consecutive 
geological periods is not clearly defined, so inti- 
mately blended are the formations of the departing 
old and incoming new. Beginnings and endings 
of geological strata must not be compared, but cen- 
tres of those strata, to observe their differences. 
Thus if we compare the last of the lower with the 



BIBLE IN" THE BALANCE. 187 

first of the tipper silurian series, little or od differ- 
ence in their fossil formations will be perceptible 
but when we come to compare their centres, we 
shall find ourselves to have crossed the invsible 
threshold that divides them, and to be standing in 
a new world of vegetable and animal life, not hav- 
ing observed where the one ceased and the other 
began. 

According to the present position of the theolog- 
ical world and the statements of the Bible, the sun 
and moon did not perform the same offices to the 
earth prior to the commencement of the present 
order of things that they do now ; and jet the evi- 
dence is, that vegetation grew bj the same agencies 
in the earlier geologic ages that it does now, and 
that the animals were brought into being and 
nourished just as at the present time. But if the 
sun was created within the time of the present 
order of things, we should naturally look for ani- 
mals and vegetables growing under the influence 
of that luminary, of very different appearances and 
constitutions from those that grew by some other 
unknown agency or agencies, before the sun was 
created ; and so marked would be this change in 
conformation and constitution, that little or no re- 
semblance would be observable between the fossils 
more, and those less than six thousand years old. 

But it is not so, and geology thus demonstrates 
that no such change in the economy of the earth or 
the heavens took place at that time. It declares 
the sun to be, at least, as old as the earth, and the 



188 BTBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

influence of his heat and his light have always been 
the same upon our planet and its productions. The 
Bible states that no rain fell till within the historic 
period. Fossil impressions of rain drops character- 
ize the Silurian strata and bear the matter of fact 
record of showers in that remote period. The 
Bible further declares that all vegetation was 
created within the above-named period ; and yet we 
find many of the grasses and trees and other vege- 
table productions of varieties now existing, in a 
fossil state below even the tertiary formation, where 
they could not be had they, as the Bible states, 
been created within the time of the present order 
of things, and the same is true of animals, including 
man, as we shall see as we proceed with the inves- 
tigation. 

Against no discovery does there exist so great a 
prejudice as that of fossil man, or what is as good 
for our present purpose, that of implements of his 
manufacture. An instrument of man's construction 
found in any of the geological formations is as good 
evidence of the existence of man in or prior to the 
period of that formation as though his fossil re- 
mains had been exhumed instead of the implement. 

Until within a short period no remains of man or 
his works had been discovered that afforded evi- 
dence of any very remote antiquity of the race ; but 
recent discoveries have placed such antiquity be- 
yond a doubt, and still the evidence is accumula- 
ting. This evidence is not confined to the Eastern 
continent, but is found on the Western as well, a 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 189 

few instances of which will be given here, while the 
great argument for the antiquity of America and 
American arts, will be given bj the learned ex- 
plorer and geologist, M. W. Dickeson, M. D. in his 
chapter on the Mounds of the Mississippi valley 
and their antiquity written expressly for this work. 
From the memorandum of Prof. Agassiz in a lecture 
delivered in Mobile, April 1852, we take the follow- 
ing. " Eespecting the remains of the fossil human 
body I possess from Florida, I can only state that the 
identity with human bones is beyond all question, 
the parts preserved heiug the jaws, with perfect teeth, 
and jportions of a foot. They were discovered by 
my friend Count F. De Pourtales, in a blufl' upon 
the shore of lake Monroe, in Florida. If we assume 
that the rate of s^rowth of carol reef to be one foot 
in a century, from a depth of seventy five feet, and 
that every successive reef has added ten miles of 
extent to the pininsula, (which assumption is 
doubling the rate of increase furnished by the evi- 
dences we now have of the additions forming upon 
the reef and the keys south of the main land), it 
would require 135,000 years to form the southern 
half of the pininsula. Now assuming further — 
which would be granting far too much — that the 
surface of the northern half of that already formed 
continued nine-tenths of that time a desert waste 
upon which the fresh water began to accumulate 
before the fossiliferous conglomerate could be 
formed, (though we have no right to assume that it 
stood for any great length of time), there would 



190 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

still remain 10,000 years during which it must be 
admitted that the mainland was inhabited by 
man." 

No higher authority can be adduced than that of 
Prof. Louis Agassiz. With a characteristic benev- 
olence towards the prejudice of the age, he surrend- 
ers one half the period of the formation of the 
southern half of the pininsula, and still another por- 
tion of the age of the fresh water of the northern 
half, and still he has left 10,000 (13,000) years for 
the age of man on the main land. Surrrendering 
nothinor of this time, and the as^e of man would be 
not less than 100,000 years on the main land of 
Florida. 

In the " Types of Mankind," pp. 137. 138, we 
find the following statement of the skeleton of a man 
found at New Orleans. " In digging for the gas works 
at ISTew Orleans, sixteen feet below the surface, 
beneath the fourth forest level, burnt wood was found 
and the skeleton of a man. The cranium laybeneath the 
roots of a cypress tree belonging to the fourth forest 
level below the surface, and was in good preserva- 
tion. The other bones crumbled on being handled. 
The type of the cranium was, as might have been 
expected, of the aboriginal American Race." 

Dr. Bennet Dowler, in his " Tableaux of New 
Orleans," 1852, makes the following calculation of 
the age of this skeleton. His theory is, that the 
delta of the Mississippi sinks and rises by slow de- 
grees, destroying by its subsidence and submersion 
all vegetable life upon the surface, over which there 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 191 

is formed a fluviatile deposit from the waters of the 
river. He calculates the period of formation of a 
cypress basin, that is the subsidence and elevation 
of the delta, to be 11,400 years. The period of the 
growth of a cypress forest 1,500, and the live oak 
platform on which New Orleans stands 1,500, mak- 
ing in all 14,400 years for the time of one cypress 
forest. Now as the skeleton was found beneath 
the fourth forest level from the surface, four times 
14.400 would be 57,600, the number of years the 
skeleton had reposed in the sediment of the river 
according to his theory. I cannot agree with Dr. 
Dowler in this estimate, for the reason that good 
evidence is wanting to prove the elevation of the 
delta. That there is a gradual subsidence is quite 
certain, as Mr. Lyell and others observe, but no evi- 
dence of its rising again, but enjoying a season of 
rest for a time, when the accumulation of peat from 
the decay of each years growth of vegetation grad- 
ually raises the surface. 

This elevation amounts, according to Yon Hum- 
boldt to one half an inch in a century. Thus, when 
the downward motion of the delta ceases for a time, 
the accumulation of vegetable matter at the above 
rate, would elevate the surface sufficiently in time 
for the growth of cypress trees. This has been the 
case ten times at N. 0., as there are ten cypress 
forests one above another at that place. As this 
skeleton was beneath the fourth from the surface, 
sixteen feet, by allowing one inch of vegetable accu- 
mulation in two hundred years, to accumulate six- 



192 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

teen feet would require 88,400 years. This esti- 
mate is probably nearer the truth and coincides well 
with Sir Charles Lyell's estimate of the age of the 
Mississippi delta, which he supposes to be not far 
from 100,000 years. By the above estimate of the 
age of the skeleton, it will be seen that each cypress 
forest marked a period of 9600 years, and ten for- 
ests would indicate a period of 96,000 years, only 
4000 years less than Mr. L. estimates the age of 
the delta. As this skeleton was found in situ and 
all the four forest stumps in 'position vertically ar- 
ranged one above another, showing no wash beneath 
them by which the skeleton could have been car- 
ried there by the action of the water, by no logical 
reasoning upon any probable or possible known 
basis can the date of that skeleton be brought 
nearer to our time than 38,000 years, and it may be 
much older. 

In 1846 Montraville W. Dickeson, M. D., of 
Philadelphia, Member of the Academy of Natural 
Sciences of that city was at Natchez, Miss., under 
the appointment of the American Society for the 
Promotion of Science, for the purpose of experi- 
menting and ascertaining the amount of water an- 
nually flowing down the Mississippi, and the 
amount of sediment it contained. While at this 
point (Natchez) his attention was called to the nu- 
merous bones of extinct mammalia found in the 
bluffs along the river and ravines that make up 
from it. These ravines are of very recent date, 
having all been formed since 1811 and 1812, when 




a, 



^2. 



> 



XT. 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 193 

tLis whole region was so terribly sliaken up by 
earthquakes. Prior to this time the drift and soil 
along the river and back for many miles was of so 
compact a nature that the surface water had little 
effect upon it to cut courses for rivulets and streams 
through it. By the earthquake action referred to, 
the soil and drift were so ruptured and disinte- 
grated, that deep ravines have since been cut 
through, by which the water from rains is now dis- 
charged to the river. In one of these, (Mammoth 
ravine) near Natchez the wash had cut through the 
entire drift down to a .stratum of hard clay belong- 
ing to the post pliocene period, and five feet into 
the clay. In this clay also, as well as in the drift 
above it, bones of the mammoth mastodon and my- 
lodon were discovered. This led Dr. D. to a close 
examination of this post pliocene deposit. 

For this purpose, securing himself and workmen 
from the danger of a slide of earth from the cliff 
above, (the ravine being 45 feet deep, with almost 
perpendicular sides), by putting in bracing timbers, 
he sunk a shaft in the bottom of the ravine fifteen 
feet deep, which, added to the five feet the waters 
had worn into the post pliocene clay made twenty 
feet of descent into this latter deposit. As this 
clay is extremely firm and hard, it was safe to drift in 
it under the overhanging cliff, which he did to the 
distance of thirty feet, where he exhumed from the 
matrix of this hard post pliocene formation a human 
pelvic bone, the os innominatum, which is now in 
17 



194 BTBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

the collection of the Academy of Natural ScieDces 
of Philadelphia, where the author has had the 
pleasure of seeing it and can state positively that its 
human identity is beyond all doubt or cavil by 
scientific men. The above facts are given in their 
minutias as they were received by the author from 
the lips of Dr. Dickeson himself, for the express pur- 
pose of publishing them in detail in this work* 
Doubts are expressed by no less an authority than 
Sir Charles Lyell in his work the " Antiquity of 
Man," and also by Prof. Joseph Leida of Philadelphia, 
personally to the writer with regard to the bone 
having been found in the precise locality stated 
above. Prof. Dickeson is competent authority on 
this point, backed as he is by the testimony of six 
prominent and influential gentlemen of Natchez, 
who were with him during the day and a half he 
was engaged in carefully disengaging it from the 
matrix with the blade of a case knife. It should 
further be stated, that, during the time these ex- 
aminations were going on (three weeks), the place 
was carefully guarded by watchmen every night, 
that no interferance with their work might occur 
by ignorant persons or those hostile to its objects, 
by perpetrating any frauds upon the investigators* 
While Mr. Lyell, who did not visit the 'precise spot 
where the bone was found, and did not even go 
nearer to it than the top of the bluff above the ra- 
vine thinks it came, or might have come from a 
mound on the top of the bluff, still says that 
had it, been any other, than a human relic, proba- 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 195 

bly no such supposition or theory would have been 
resorted to." But why does Mr. L. object to Dr. 
D's statement, or to the probability of human relics 
being found in the post pliocene of America, since 
he states expressly that they have been found in 
the same formation in Europe ? Why admit the 
one doubt the other ? In his " Antiquity of Man " 
p. 207, he uses the following language : "We have 
seen that in the neighborhood of Bedford, England, 
the memorials of man can be traced further back 
into the past, namely into the jpost pliocene epoch^ 
when the human race was contemporary with the 
mammoth and many other species of animals now 
extinct." That man existed during if not prior to 
the post pliocene period, the many evidences we 
have leave no room for doubt. The post pliocene 
was anterior to the drift epoch which introduced the 
present period, in which the American continent as 
well as the eastern was plunged beneath the waves 
of the Glacial Sea, and. again elevated much higher 
than they are at present, covered with perhaps 
thousands of feet of ice, sunk to their present level, 
while in the latter process huge glaciers, by their 
freezing and expansion, carried with them, in their 
under surfaces, large boulders by the slow process of 
a foot or two in a year, to a distance in some cases of 
six, eight and even ten hundred miles, furrowing and 
striating the surface of the rocks over which they 
passed and leaving the record of their transit to be 
read and interpreted by the scientist of the present 
day who makes his home amid the graves of the 



196 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

generations of earth who perished, according to this 
ever reliable record, hundreds of thousands of 
years ago, from its subsiding surface. 

It cannot be with feelings other than of profound 
regret that the reader observes in the work of Sir 
Charles Lyell, on the "Adtiquity of Man," that this 
great author, than whom no higher authority ex- 
ists, has seemed to shirk the responsibility of ex- 
pressing conclusions inevitably emergent from the 
facts he relates, touching the antiquity of man. 

A clear summing up of the testimony and an in- 
duction built upon it, is what every reader of the 
work refered to would of course look for, but he 
finds nothing of the kind, and the whole force of the 
facts, is, if not entirely, at least partially lost in his 
discussion of other matters not indicated by the title 
of the book. It is further to be regretted that Mr. 
Lyell should attach so little weight to the evidence 
of the antiquity of man afforded by the "Natchez 
bone," and so disparage the authority of Dr. Dicke- 
son, the only competent witness in the case, and to 
whom he was indebted for all his knowledge of that 
fossil, which knowledge, unless on a question of 
veracity which has never been raised, it would seem 
was sufficient to place the dnie of man on this con- 
tinent back at least 100,000 years which would 
correspond very well with the age that must be 
ascribed to the flint implements in the valley of the 
Somme, the following account of which from the 
Westminster Review, of Apr, 1863, is of the highest 
authority known to the scientific world. 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 197 

"Between Amiens and Abbeville, the valley of 
the Somme lies in an elevated plateau of White 
Chalk with flints, the strata of which are nearly 
horizontal; its breadth averages about a mile; and 
its sloping sides rise to a height of from 200 to 300 
feet. 

" The chalk, although seen on the slopes of the 
hills where it has been denuded in the excavation 
of the valley, is scarcely ever exposed on the surface 
of the table land which is for the most part covered 
with a layer of loam or brick-earth about five feet 
thick, to which the fertility of the soil of Picardy is 
in a great part due. 

''Here and there however are to be observed out- 
laying patches of Tertiary sand and clay which are 
shown by their contained fossils to be referable to 
the Eocene period ; and these, it can scarcely be 
doubted, are but the relics of a formation that once 
extended continuously over the chalk before the 
shaping out of the present system of valleys had 
commenced. It can be shown by a comparison of 
their respective materials that the denudation of 
these Tertiary strata has contributed largely to fur- 
nish the materials, both of the upland loam and of 
the gravels found at different elevations of the sides 
of the valley in which the flint implements and 
bones of extinct Mammals are entombed. The bot- 
tom at the present level of the valley is covered by 
a layer of peat from ten to thirty feet in thickness, 
underneath which is a thin layer of impervious clay 
separating it from a bed of gravel from three to 



198 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

thirteen feet thick which in its turn rests upon undis- 
turbed chalk. 

"JSTo geologist can have a moments doubt that 
this valley has been scooped out by the action of 
water which has removed one stratum of chalk 
after another, carrying it away, not merely to the 
present level of the river, but to a depth of thirty 
or forty feet below. 

" On the sloping sides of the valley there are 
found resting on the denuded chalk, two series of 
gravel beds, an upper and a lower ; both of them 
covered with a fluviatile loam, and both found to 
contain when dug into, bones of extinct animals in 
association with flint implements. The lower 
gravels are not much elevated above the present 
level of the river ; the upper gravels on the other 
hand, are found at a height of from eighty to a 
hundred feet above that level. There are no such 
differences between the organic remains found in the 
upper and lower gravels respectively as would cer- 
tainly indicate a difference in their relative geologic 
ages ; but we shall see it to be a fair inference from 
an examination of the local conditions, that whilst 
the lower gravels were deposited when the valley 
had been excavated nearly to the present level of 
the river, the upper gravels must have been formed 
at a much earlier period of the excavation when the 
bottom of the valley was from eighty to a hundred 
feet higher than it is at present. 

" It was in the lower gravels of Menchecourt, in 
the north west suburbs of Abbeville, that the flint 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 199 

implements, which have since attracted so much 
attention were first discovered. Pits had been dug 
in these gravels from time to time, as materials 
were wanted for repairing the fortifications, flints 
for mending the roads or loam for making bricks ; 
and these excavations broug^ht into view the im- 
bedded bones of various extinct quadrupeds, viz., 
JElephas Primigenius Rhinoceros Tichorinus^ Equus 
Fossilis. Bos Primigenius^ Gervus Somonensis Cer- 
viis Tarandus Priscus^ Felis Spelwa and Hyena 
Spelsea^ which had been sent to Cuvier for identifi- 
cation and had been described in his ' Ossemens 
Fossils.' It was not, however, until 1841 that the 
disinterment of definitely shaped flints from these 
same gravel beds fell under the notice of M. Bou- 
cher de Perthes, an antiquarian residing at Abbe- 
ville, who recognized in their rude and peculiar 
type a character distinct from that of the polished 
stone weapons of a later period usually called 

* celts.' A correct description of these flint imple- 
ments was given by him in the first volume of 

* Antiquities Celtiques,' published in 1846 ; wherein 
he describes them as * antediluvian,' because they 
came from the lowest bed of the strata which were 
once geologically designated as ' diluvian.' He also 
correctly stated that they occur at various depths, 
often 20 or 30 feet in the sand or gravel, especially 
in the lowest strata which are nearly in contact 
with the subjacent white chalk ; and he drew atten- 
tion to their association with the bones of animals 
alike antediluvian in their character." This inter- 



200 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

esling account continues: " Like many other dis- 
coveries which run counter to received doctrines, 
that of M. Boucher de Perthes was in the first in- 
stance quietly ignored. The scientific world had 
no faith in the statement that works of art however 
rude had been met with in undisturbed beds of 
such antiquity. Few geologists visited Abbeville 
in winter when the sand pits were open, and 
when they might have opportunities of verifying the 
sections and judging whether the instruments had 
really been imbedded by natural causes in the 
same strata with the bones of the Mammoth, woolly 
Ehinoceros, and other extinct Mammals. Some of 
the implements figured in the ' Antiquities Cel- 
tiques, were so rudely shaped that many imagined 
them to have owed their peculiar forms to acciden- 
tal fracture in a river bed; others suspected fraud 
on the part of the workmen who might have fabri- 
cated them for sale; while others again argued that 
the gravel had been disturbed and that the worked 
flints had got mingled with the bones of the Mam- 
moth long after that animal and its associates had 
disappeared from the earth. No one was in the 
first instance more sceptical than Dr. Eigollot, at 
the time and eminent physician at Amiens, who in 
the year 1819 had written a memoir on the fossil 
mammalia of the valley of the Somme and was well 
acquainted with its geological features. But he 
showed himself, like a true philosopher, open to 
conviction. He was at length induced to visit 
Abbeville and to inspect the collection of M. 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 201 

Bouclier de Perthes; and was so impressed by 
what he saw there as to apply himself immediately 
on his return home to the search for similar flint 
implements in the gravel pits Dear Amiens. There, 
accordingly, at a distance of about forty miles from 
Abbeville he speedily found abundance of flint im- 
plements precisely resembling those collected by 
his predecessors both in the rudeness of their make 
and in their geological position. In the course of 
four years he obtained several hundreds of these 
objects; some of them from gravels corresponding 
in their slight elevation with those of Menchecourt 
but others from the pits of St. Achuel (about three 
miles to the South-east of Amiens) where the gravel 
bed forms a terrace resting on a gently sloping 
ledge of chalk and covered with a fine loam, the 
surface of which is about a hundred feet above the 
present level of the Somme. 

Having thus fully satisfied himself as to the facts, 
M. Eigollot lost no time in announcing his conver- 
sion by the publication of a memoir in 185i contain- 
ing good figures of the worked flints with careful 
sections of the beds, which were prepared by M. 
Bateux an engineer who was peculiarly qualified 
for the task, by having previously written a good 
description of the geology of Picardy. In this 
memoir M. Eigollot pointed out most clearly that it 
was not in the vegetable soil, nor in the brick 
earth with land and fresh water shells next below, 
but in the lower beds of coarse flint gravel, usually 
twelve, twenty or twenty-five feet below the surface 



202 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

that the implements are met with; just as they had 
previously been stated by M. Boucher, De Perthes 
to occur at Abbeville. And it seemed a conclusion 
legitimately deducible from the facts of the case, 
that the flint implements and their fabricators were 
coeval with the extinct Mammals whose remains 
were imbedded in the same strata." 

The writer in the Westminister Review still con- 
tinues: " The wall of scientific prejudice, however, 
was too strong to be breached by even this power- 
ful and well aimed missile ; and the memoir of Dr. 
Eigollot received scarcely more attention than had 
been accorded to that of his predecessor. 

Four years after its appearance however, the eyes 
of the Brittish geologists began to be opened by the 
revelations of the Brixham bone cave; and Dr. 
Falconer, who had taken an active part in its ex- 
plorations, having stoped at Abbeville on his way 
to Sicily in 1858, and there examined the collection 
of M. Boucher De Perthes, was so strongly im- 
pressed with what he saw as to write to Mr. Prest- 
wich, urging him to lose no time in making a 
thorough exploration of the gravel beds in the val- 
ley of the Somme, with a view to the determination 
of the very important questions connected with 
their peculiar contents. 

Every person who is acquainted with the recent 
progress of Tertiary and Post Tertiary Geology, 
will agree with Sir Charles Lj^ell that there was no 
one in England whose authority deserved to have 
more weight in overcoming incredulity in regard 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 203 

to the antiquity of the implements in question than 
that of Mr. Prestvvich; smce, besides having pub- 
lished a series of important memoirs on the Tertiary 
formations of Europe, he had devoted many years 
specially to the study of the drift and its organic 
remains. That authority had. been gained by the 
most legitimate means laborious and preserving re- 
search, logical discrimination and philosopical 
habits of reasoning ; and the value of scientific 
character was never more forcibly shown than in the 
reception which Mr. Prestwich's ^ronwriciameTito ex- 
perienced from the large body of distinguished 
scientific men who assembled at the meeting of the 
Eoyal Society to which the results of his researches 
were communicated on the 26th of May 1859. 

M.V. Prestwich lost no time in complying with the 
recommendation of Dr. Falconer. He hoped in the 
first instance to induce other scientific friends to ac- 
company him ; being unsuccessful in this attempt 
he started alone, but was joined at Abbeville by 
Mr. John Evans, a distinguished member of the so- 
ciety of Antiquarians. As in the case of Dr. Ki- 
gollot, his preposessions had been against the 
reality of the supposed discovery, but being like 
Dr. Rigollot, open to conviction, he found himself 
unable to resist the evidence of his senses, and soon 
became satisfied of the following propositions : 
First^ that the shaped flints were fashioned by the 
hand of man ; second^ that they were originally de- 
posited in the strata in which they were imbedded, 
and had not found their way into them by any sub- 



20i BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

sequent casualty ; third^ that they were associated 
iu these strata with the bones of Mammals now ex- 
tinct; and fourth^ that the condition of these bones 
indicated the living existence of the races they re- 
presented at the time of the deposit of these strata, 
and, consequently, the contemporaneousness of man 
with those races. To these, in a memoir read be- 
fore the Koyal Society on the 27th of May, 1862, he 
added as a fifth, that the geological changes which 
must have occurred since the deposit of the upper 
gravels, cannot be accounted for except on the ad- 
mission of a lapse of time far surpassing that admit- 
ted by any received system of chronology." 

The foregoing extract has been copied at length, 
not for the purpose of proving that the works of 
man have been found so associated with the remains 
of extinct species of animals, as to prove them con- 
temporaneous, but to show how careful scientific 
men have ever been in their investigations, and how 
slow to arrive at conclusions until the facts leading 
to them have been confirmed by the concurrent 
testimony of the highest authorities, each deducing 
his facts from as many different sources as possible. 
In this case three living authorities of the highest 
standing in the scientific world, viz: M. Boucher de 
Perthes of Abbeville, Dr. EigoUot of Amiens, and 
Mr. Prestwich of England, and since corroborated 
by Sir Charles Lyell, each making his observations 
at different times and in different localities, and 
with precisely the same results and the same con- 
clusions, although, without an exception they all 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 205 

entered upon the inv.estigation with doubts as to the 
fact of any geological evidence of man's contempo- 
raneousness with extinct quadrupeds, must be evi- 
dence to every reflective mind that it is needless 
to pursue the investigation further, and folly to 
doubt the result. The fact of contemporaneousness 
is established beyond the possibility of a doubt, and 
the evidence that makes it apparent is of so over- 
whelming a nature as to put to shame the flimsy 
apologies for evidence of the divine authority of the 
Bible, the correctness of its chronology or the reli- 
ability of its history. It now remains to show 
approximately — for precision cannot be reached — 
how long these flint implements have lain in the 
gravel beds of Abbeville and Amiens. It will be 
remembered there are two of these gravel beds in 
which are found flint implements, with the animal 
remains spoken of, and that the latter, in some in- 
stances, were attached by ligaments and doubtless 
covered with flesh when deposited. 

This is proved by the fact that they were in the 
same relative position in the gravel as when in the 
living animal and not worn, as would have been the 
case had they been washed about with the sand 
and gravel of the river. This fact is important in 
showing them to have been deposited in their re- 
cent state, with the flint implements at the same 
time fresh from the hand of man, also proved by 
their still retaining the peculiar external texture 
,^of freshly broken flint, which texture is soon re- 
18 



206 BTBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

moved bj even the slight friction to which such 
implements are subjected in* the chase. These beds 
are eighty feet apart ; the upper twenty, and the 
lower one hundred feet below the general surface 
of the land that borders the river, and the lower 
100 to 140 feet, above the ancient level of the river 
bed, which bed is now covered by an accumulation 
of terrestrial origin from ten to thirty feet in depth. 
In estimating the ages of these beds of gravel flint 
implements and bones, no specific data presents 
itself upon which to base a calculation as to the 
time occupied in the denuding of the chalk and 
scooping out the valley. Darwin calculates at 
least 36,000 years for the time required to wear 
the present chasm of the Niagara river, which, 
doubtless, is not an over-estimate. The chasm of 
Niagara is less than one-eighth of a mile in width, 
and with perpendicular or overhanging sides, and 
in depth a little less than 175 feet. The form of 
the sides indicates it to be a very young river. By 
age the bluffs of all rivers crumble away and their 
banks become sloping, and at the same time the 
bed is worn broader, and becomes from a mere 
channel for the passage of the water, a river valley 
with " bottoms" of arable land through which the 
channel winds, touching by turns either bank and 
widening the valley, and, in times of freshets, fre- 
quently cutting across the bottom lands and making 
a new channel and leaving the old with its beds of 
gravel and whatever else they may contain, to an 
undisturbed repose ever after, cutting the new 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 207 

channel so deep and so wide, as never to overflow 
again the banks and bed of the old. In this man- 
ner the valley of the Somme has been worn down 
through the chalk and flint deposits, to a depth of 
200 to 800 feet, and to the breadth of a mile or 
more, on an average. Admitting this chalk and 
flint to be more easily denuded than the lime stone 
and slate of Niagara, it must still be borne in mind 
that the Somme is a much smaller stream than the 
Niagara, and far less impetuous in its flow, and 
without the aid of frost in long winters in parting 
the rocks, or accumulations of ice at the falls, to 
break down large pieces of rock at a time by its 
great weight. 

Taking all these facts into the account, less than 
eight times 86,000 years cannot be computed for the 
wearing down the valley of the Somme, not making 
any allowance for a season of rest which there is 
evidence of when the sea flowed back nearly on a 
level with the lower gravel, as indicated by the 
peat formation at that elevation above the ancient 
level of the river bed. This peat accumulation over 
the ancient bed of the river is as before stated thirty 
feet in depth. The length of time required for this 
accumulation is estimated at 80,000 to 60,000 
years. 

The method of arriving at this conclusion is as 
follows. M. Boucher de Perthes found Gallo- 
Eoman remains near the surface of the peat and 
still deeper down Celtic weapons of the later stone 
age ; and in one instance discovered several flat 



208 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

dishes of Eoman pottery, lying in a flat position so 
as to have precluded the possibility of their having 
I penetrated to their present positions by sinking 

through the peat. Allowing fourteen hundred years 
for the age of the dishes which is doubtless too lit- 
tle, it was found that the accumulation of peat was 
at the rate of three centimeters or one half inch in a 
century. This would give for the time of the ac- 
cumulation of the peat to a depth of thirty feet a 
period of not less 30,000 years as given in the 
Westminister Eeview, but really 72,000 years since 
the lowest depth of the river bed was reached by 
the denuding process* 

From these data, uncertain as they are, but not 
too high, the age of the valley of the Somme cannot 
be less than 860,000 years. Taking now the depth 
of the upper gravel bed, but little below the surface 
of the surrounding country it is but fair to con- 
clude that the bones and implements contained in it 
are as old or nearly so, as the valley itself. 

]N"ot 6,000 3^ears ago then did the first man dress 
the trees in Eden, but 860,000 years ago France 
was inhabited by a race of rude hunters and their 
weapons of the chase were these same rude imple- 
ments that to-day are correcting the erroneous chro- 
nology of the theologian, and still it is not certain 
how long before that, the first man of clay breathed 
the breath of life. Remus, it is said, was naughty 
when he leaped the walls of Rome, but censure not 
the mind that has, by the foregoing facts been 
forced to leap the barrier of six thousand years and 



BIBLE m THE BALANCE. 209 

place man back nearly if not quite as many centur- 
ies. 'No sane mind will claim that within the limits 
of Biblical chronology France has enjoyed a climate 
so mild as to admit the life of such tropical animals 
as are found fossil in the gravel beds of the Somme. 
He is not a conservative but an impudent man that 
will cling to Usher's 6,000 years ignoring the 
plainest and most conclusive deductions of science. 



CHAPTER XL 

The Testimon"y of Geology. (Contmued.) 

But the association of the works of man with 
the remains of extinct mammalia is not an anomaly 
in the valley of the S 'rame ; numerous other local- 
ities afford the same evidences of the contempo- 
raneousness of the two, not only gravel beds, but 
shell mounds, peat bogs, and bone caverns. Mr. 
Evans, who accompanied Mr. Prestwich to the val- 
ley of the Somme, on seeing the flint implements 
of Abbeville and Amiens, recollected having seen 
similarly worked flints in the Museum of Anti- 
quaries to which they had been sent in the year 
1800 by Mr. Frere who stated in his description of 
them that they were found in great abundance in 
gravel at the bottom of a clay pit at Hoxne, near 
Diss, in the county of Suffolk. The gravel bed in 
which they occurred was covered first with a foot 
and a half of sand in which many shells were found 
with the jaw bone and teeth of an enormous un- 
known animal, then with a stratum seven and a 
half feet thick of clay, and lastly with a foot and a half 
of vegetable mould. On being informed by Mr. Evans 
of these implements in the Museum and their history, 
Mr. Prestwich went immediately to the spot and 
fortunately found an old man who had worked all 
his life in the pit and who showed him the precise 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 211 

spot where the great collection of them had been 
disintered and informed Mr. P. that in Mr. Frere 
time, this spot had yielded such quantities that they 
had been emptied out in large quantities to fill the 
ruts in the adjoining road, no one dreaming, at the 
time, of their value to science. Others had from 
time to time been exhumed, and two but a few 
months prior to the time of Mr. Prestwich's visit. 
No Mammalian remains in the same stratum with 
the flints indicated a contemporaneous existence of 
those animals with the fabricators of the implements, 
but the remains of the elephant in the stratum of 
overlying clay, is proof positive that man was as 
ancient, at least, an inhabitant as the elephant of 
that locality. 

From d most careful investigation of the geolog- 
ical strata, location of the implements and their 
character, by this sagacious observer and true phi- 
losopher he came to the conclusion that the Hoxne 
implements and their association was a case exactly 
similar to that of the valley of the Somme, the only 
difference being that all the implements of Hoxne 
were of fresh fracture and not at all worn, while 
in the Somme gravels those of this character 
formed the exception, while the great mass bore the 
appearance of having been worn in the chase as 
well as in the sands and gravels of the river. 
This was not the only case; England is rich in 
such remains. There is in the British Museum a 
flint weapon, spear headed in form, found in 1715 
near Gray's Inn Lane imbedded with the skeleton 



212 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

of an elepbaDt and was doubtless tbe implement 
that caused the death of the huge animal. England 
had a tropical climate and jungles in those days, 
and man hunted elephants in them, but it was so 
long ago that in comparison, the mighty Nimrod 
of the Bible is a child of nine o'clock this morning, 
and it is now only eleven. Id the Alluvium of the 
"Way, near Guilford was found in 1836 a wedge- 
shaped flint instrument like those brought by Mr. 
Prestwich from St. Achuel. It was imbedded four 
feet deep in a stratum of sand and gravel, which 
yielded teeth and tusks of the elephant. Mr. Aus- 
ten, on an examination of the deposit, found it to 
contain two strata, and that the lower was so an- 
cient that it had been dislocated and titled before 
the upper had been deposited upon it. On the coast 
of Wales, eighteen feet above high tide was found 
the skeleton of a whale with an implement of horn 
in connection with it which without doubt was the 
weapon by which it died. 

In the valleys of the Oise and the Seine have 
been discovered flint implements in connection 
with the remains of extinct Pachyderms, and the 
geological conditions are such as to favor the opin- 
ion that they are referable to the same epoch as 
those of the Somme. 

Flint implements of the French pattern have 
been found in various parts of the valley of the 
Thames in alluvial beds, so associated with organic 
remains as to show them to be referable to the ele- 
phantine age of England. These facts are exceed- 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 213 

ingly embarrassing to Biblical chronology, and 
furnish England with as good a claim to the sight 
of ancient Eden as Arabia or any other portion of 
the globe. 

One more instance, and we leave the gravel beds. 

From the Westminster Eeview we take the fol- 
lowing : 

"The ancient fluviatile gravel of the valley. of 
the Ouse around Bedford, which has long been 
noted for furnishing to collectors a rich harvest of 
the bones of extinct Mammals, has lately rewarded 
the persevering search of Mr. James Wyatt, by 
yielding well formed implements, (flint of course), 
one of the spear head and the other oval in shape, 
perfect counterparts of the two prevailing French 
types. 

"Two specimens were thrown out on the same 
day at Biddenham from the lowest bed of the 
stratified gravel and sand, thirteen feet thick, con- 
taining bones of the elephant, deer and ox, and 
many fresh water shells ; and several other speci- 
mens have since been found both at Biddenham 
and in other localities near Bedford. This valley 
is excavated throu2;h a horizontal stratum of oolite 
overlaid by a thick layer of boulder clay containing 
erratic blocks ; and the gravel beds rest immediate- 
ly on the oolite at no great height above the river 
bed. The fact that the valley is formed partly by 
the denudation of this boulder clay, shows that it 
must have been excavated after this part of Eng- 
land had been submerged beneath the Glacial sea, 



214: BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

and its shaping out was probably affcctei^ by the 
joint action of the rivers and the tides during the 
slow upheaval which succeeded, the boulder clay 
being the first cut through, and then the underlying 
oolite. The action of the river, aided perhaps, by 
the continual upheaval of the land or by ossillations 
in its level, went on widening and deepening the 
valley, often shifting its channel, until, at length, a 
broad area was covered by a succession of alluvial 
deposits, the two principal of which seem to corres- 
pond to the upper and lower gravels of the valley 
of the Somme; the drift at Biddenham which is 
thirty feet above the present level of the Ouse, 
being probably analogous to the former ; and the 
gravel in which the town of Bedford is built, and 
which is on the lower level relatively to the river, 
being the representative of the latter. In one re- 
spect, therefore, the case of the Bedford valley is 
even stronger than that of the valley of the Somme ; 
since the excavation of the valley can be proved to 
be posterior to the submergence of the land beneath 
the Glacial Sea, in the former case, whilst we have 
only a probability to that effect in the latter." 

From the foregoing facts in reference to the 
gravel beds of the five rivers mentioned, all of which 
appear to agree in their geological features as well 
as in the character of their contained fossils, it is 
but fair to conclude that when the beds of other 
rivers come to be explored, they will be found to 
contain similar remains, and thus it will appear that 
all Europe has yielded to one general cataclysm by 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 215 

which man as well as animals was destroyed, the 
former having advanced no further in the arts of 
life than the manufacture of the rude implements 
that characterize the gravel beds already examined. 
I am inclined to this belief, and that these flint im- 
plements have no relation to the " Celts " of a much 
later period, nor were their fabricators the same 
race that formed the latter, nor their immediate 
progenitors, but a race that entirely disappeared 
long ages ago by physical conditions that rendered 
all Europe and of course much of Asia and Africa 
for an indefinite period uninhabitable by man. 

Several facts conspire to support this hypothesis. 
First, no Celts or stone hatchets are found in the 
same strata with the flint implements, but in those 
of a much later date. The former are, or have so 
far been found in strata by themselves, and in con- 
nection with remains of extinct Mammalia, while 
the latter are not found in situ with such Mamma- 
lian remains. In cases where the two occur together, 
*. e, Celts and the bones of mammals, the latter ap- 
pear to have been washed to their present positions 
from more ancient beds, by the greater wear to 
which they have been subjected, than those still in 
connection with the flints. Again there does seem 
to be a connection between the stone, bronze and 
iron ages, from the fact that these implements are 
sometimes partially intermingled. As the bronze 
succeeded the stone age, bronze and stone implements 
are frequently met with in the same deposit, mark- 
ing the interblending of the margins of the two con- 



216 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

secutive ages. But not so with the flint age ; this 
seems to be separated from the stone age by a lapse 
of time and physical conditions, in which that por. 
tion of the continent that has already been explored 
and perhaps the whole was submerged beneath the 
Glacial Sea. This would carry man back prior to 
the glacial period, and account for the implements 
of his fabrication being found in the drift. 

This is but a hypothesis, though not entirely un- 
sustained by facts, for if any portion of the Bedford 
gravels were deposited with their contained fossils 
during the slow elevation of England from beneath 
the Glacial Sea, it follows that the flint implements 
were made, and the animals lived prior to the sub- 
mersion, and accounts for the wide separation be- 
tween the strata containing these and those 
containing the Celts and bronze weapons of a much 
later period. But the question is asked why are 
not human as well as animal remains found in the 
drift ? As the continent slowly settled, and in 
portions became uninhabitable, man would migrate 
to more congenial and safe localities, and thus leave 
only his implements and weapons behind, having 
as was doubtless the custom, burned all the bodies 
of his dead, while the animal creation, with less 
sagacity, perished upon the spot, and left the osseous 
record of the event, to the scientific purposes and 
interests of the present age. 

For the age of the valley of the Somme, we have 
a period of 360,000 years, but for the flint imple- 
ments and their osseous associates, we may multi- 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 217 

ply this number by thousands and still be within 
the date. Should, however subsequent discoveries 
show by association in the same matrix that the 
flint stone and bronze ages did immediately succeed 
each other, the above hypothesis will be overthrown, 
and the entire works of man, with all the extinct 
mammalia found fossil in the gravel beds of the 
Somme, Seine, Oise, Ouse will necessarily be as- 
cribed to a post Glacial epoch. Still this will not 
mend the matter so far as Biblical chronology and 
the age of man are concerned. The weight, not of 
six, but more than three hundred thousand years 
rests upon him. 

Theology may writhe in the contortions of expir- 
ing pain, but geology holds her within her strong 
grasp, and her lapidary records will be read and 
credited long after every fibre of King James' 
parchment has been strown to the winds. 

A second class of evidences bearing on the anti- 
quity of man, is the association of human bones as 
well as flint and other implements, with those of 
extinct animals in the deposits of caves. 

About the year 1830, Dr. Schmerling, a celebrated 
anatomist, and palaeontologist of Leige, published a 
work descriptive of some forty osseous caves in the 
valley of the Meuse and its numerous tributaries. 
In this work, it is stated that most of these caverns 
are in the carboniferous lime stone, but a few being 
found as low as the Devonian series, and so com- 
municating with the surface by narrow fissures, 
vertical or oblique, choked up by sand and gravel 



218 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

that no doubt remains as to their contents having 
been washed in by ancient floods, a conclusion con- 
firmed bj the worn condition of both organic and 
inorganic remains, which have become consolidated 
by the action of carbonate of lime held in solution 
by the water that has dripped from the roofs of the 
caves, since their accumulation. Dr. S. found at 
an early stage of his investigations the bones of 
man associated with those of several animals, some 
of which are extinct species and others living. Of 
the former, he observed those of the cave bear, 
hyena, elephant and rhinoceros, and of the latter, 
the wild cat, beaver, wild boar, roe, deer, wolf and 
hedge hog. As a further evidence these bones had 
not been placed there by human agency, or carried 
there by beasts of prey, none of them were gnawed, 
and the caves were bare of coprolites, that invaria- 
bly characterize such caves as have been the retreat 
of bears and hyenas. In only four out of the forty 
caverns explored, did Dr. Schmerling find any 
human bones — though flint implements were uni- 
versal, and in no instance were two found in juxta- 
position as if carried in while clothed with flesh, or 
held together by ligaments. In a few instances, 
however, this was the case with the bones of ani- 
mals. 

The flint implements were the kind known as 
'Knives,' which were thin flakes struck off from 
a central core by a smooth rounded stone, very hard, 
and were scattered throughout the mass of consoli- 
dated cave mud. In one instance was found a 



BIBLE m THE BALANCE. 219 

polisbed and jointed needle shaped bone with a hole 
pierced obliquely through it that could not have 
been a natural foramen for the passage of an 
artery. 

Sir Charles Lyell in 1833, visited Leige and saw 
the collection of Dr. Schmerling, but was not con- 
vinced by it and the Dr's reasoning that man was 
contemporary with the extinct races of animals, 
though the bones of each had found in so many in- 
stances a common sepulchre. This incredulity on 
the part of the over cautious investigator called 
forth the well deserved rejoinder from Dr. Schmer- 
ling, "that if the co-existence of man with the bear 
or rhinoceros was to be doubted on the ground of 
his being a species of more modern origin, the co- 
existence of all the other living species — such as 
the red deer, roe, wild cat, wild boar, wolf, fox, 
weazel, beaver, hare, rabbit, hedge hog, dor-mouse, 
water rat, shrew and others whose bones were 
every where found scattered indiscriminately in the 
same mud as those of the extinct quadrupeds — 
ought to be objected to on the same grounds." Still 
these bones were all of the same color and contained 
the same amount of animal matter which precluded 
the idea that their periods of living existence could 
have been in different geological epochs, or separ- 
ated by any great number of intervening years. 
The professors of the university of Leige occupied 
the same ground as Sir Charles Lyell, notwithstand- 
ing they had every opportunity of being convinced, 
for Dr. Schmerling " had accumulated ample evi- 



220 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

dence to prove that man had been introduced into 
the earth at a much earlier period than geologists 
were willing to believe," all remaining needlessly 
in doubt as to the correctness and exactitude of his 
statements. 

Spell bound in wonder and doubt remained the 
professors, as also their brethern at Amiens with 
Sir Charles Lyell till the voice of Mr. Prestwich in 
his memoir on the flints of Amiens and Abbeville, 
broke the spell and induced Mr. Ljell to revisit 
Leige and engage the assistence of Professor Ma- 
laise, a competent and zealous naturalist of that 
place, and renew himself, with the professor, the 
researches of Dr. Schmerling in the very Engihoul 
cave when the Dr. had disintered fragmentary 
portions of three human skeletons. 

These researches resulted in the complete conver- 
sion of Sir Charles Lyell, and Prof. Malaise, to the 
belief of Dr. Schmerling, finding as they did, human 
bones associated with those of bears, large pachy- 
derms and ruminants below the undisturbed crust 
of stalagmite, and satisfied them that man was con- 
temporaneous with the extinct Mammals they rep- 
resented. 

With regard to the age of these caverns and their 
contents, no data exists upon which to base a com- 
putation that may be regarded as any thing more 
than an approximation to the truth. Great changes 
have taken place in the valley of the Meuse and its 
tributaries since the filling up of these caverns 
through which streams flowed prior to the present 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 221 

system of drainage. The mouths of many of the 
caves are in the perpendicular sides of the valleys 
two hundred feet or more above the present level 
of the streams ; and in blufi's on opposite sides of 
the valleys are corresponding openings to osseous 
caverns, that must have been continuous before the 
valleys were scooped out, find the connecting por- 
tion carried away by the wear of the waters. This 
wear has been to a depth it must be remembered 
since the filling of the caverns, of over two hun- 
dred feet, and that too through the hard carbonifer- 
ous lime stone and the harder rocks of the devo- 
nian series. To state the time in years would be 
the merest conjecture, yet with limited powers of 
human conception the mind is in little danger of 
getting the number too high. 

About 1830, Kev. Mr. McEnery, a Catholic priest, 
found in Kent's Hole — a cave known by that name 
near Torquay — several flint implements closely re- 
sembling those of Abbeville, associated with the 
bones of the mammoth, tichorine rhinoceros, cave, 
bear and other extinct mammalia. These the Eev. 
Prof, found means to distinguish from the human 
remains of a later period, and to identify as of 
contemporaneous origin with the fossil animals 
with which they were associated and sent illustra- 
tions of them with a memoir on the subject to Dr. 
Buckland, but without impressing the mind of 
the Oxford professor with his own convictions, 
such conclusions being at the time both theologi- 
cally and scientifically heretical. The justly cele- 



222 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

brated geologist Mr. Godwin Austen, however con- 
firmed the statements and conclusions of Rev. Mr. 
McEaerj in 1842, by the declaration " that he had 
obtained from the same cave, works of man, min- 
gled with the remains of extinct animals, buried in 
undisturbed loam or clay, beneath a crust of stal- 
agmite, that must have been formed subsequently 
to their introduction, the hypothesis of sepulture 
being here inapplicable." — Westminster Review 
April, 1863. 

In the Brixham cave explored by Dr. Falconer 
and Mr. Pengelly in 1858—9 were found flint knives 
recognized by the most distinguished antiquarians, 
with the nucleus from which they had been stricken 
off, beneath a deposit of undisturbed bone earth 
or loam thirteen feet thick, and associated with the 
bones of the Mammoth, Cave Bear, Tichorine Rhi- 
noceros, Cave Hyena, Cave Lion, Rein Deer . and 
various Herbivora. The surface of this deposit was 
covered with an incrustation of stalagmite contain- 
ing also bones. The entire hind leg of a cave bear 
with all the bones in their natural position, proved 
the deposit to have been made near the time of the 
death of the animals, proof positive of their contem- 
poraneousness with man. As the red loam in 
which these flints and bones were found is only met 
with on the surface of the limestone in the neigh- 
borhood eighty feet above the deposit, the inference 
cannot be resisted that it was brought to its present 
position by currents that ran at that elevation above 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 223 

the present level of the stream that runs through the 
valley. 

Lastly, of the bone caves must be mentioned the 
result of the labors and researches of M. Lartet near 
the town of Auringac in the department of Haut 
Garronne, near a spur of the Pyrenees. On the 
steep- side of a hill of nummulitic limestone is the 
mouth of a cavern that was, when discovered, in 
1852 closed by a heavy stone slab placed vertically 
against it. On removing this slab, the grotto was 
found nearly filled with human skeletons which, on 
being made known, the authorities of the town or- 
dered removed and intered in a common trench in 
the cemetery ; and as the place was not marked the 
sexton was unable to point Mr. Lyell to the spot in 
his visit of investigation to Aurignac some years 
after, which that gentleman very much regretted 
"as thus, the evidence they might have afforded 
was forever lost to the scientific world." 

The number of skeletons thus removed and rein- 
tered was seventeen of both sexes and various ages, 
and with them the bones of extinct Mammalia, one 
entire skeleton of a cave bear being found with all 
the bones in position, the funeral offering probably 
of some renowned hunter but older than Nimrod, 
for be it remembered the little stream has worn the 
rock many feet down to its present level since the 
burial and the huge monster deposited, to serve as 
food for the departed spirit in its journey to the 
happier hunting grounds of the spirit world. 

Outside the cavern was a heap of coals and ashes 



224 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

thickly intersperse with flint knives and bones of 
animals, many of them of extinct species, the re- 
mains doabtless, of as many funeral meals as the 
cavern contained human skeletons. These bones 
bore marks of having been scraped as with the rude 
flint knives in removing the flesh, while all that 
contained marrow were split longitudinally for its 
extraction. Among the latter was one of the Ticho- 
rine Rhinoceros, which, with the skeleton of the 
cave bear inside the cave relieves the mind of the 
last lingering doubt of man being a contemporary 
with these extinct quadrupeds. This proof amounts 
to absolute demomstration. 

The deeper layers of the Danish peat bogs show 
a great antiquity. These peat bogs are accumula- 
tions of vegetable matter in depressions on the sur- 
face of the boulder clay or northern drift. 

The prevailing forest timber of Denmark at the 
present time is the beech, and flourishes with the 
luxuriance to day that it did in the days of the 
Eomans. The trunks of trees imbedded in the 
upper strata of the peat bogs belong not to the 
beech, though this tree is known to have flourished 
there in all historic times, but to the peduncu- 
lated oak, and lower down is found the sessil oak, 
while in the lowest stratum occurs the scotch fir. 
These successive timber deposits mark three great 
climatic conditions of the country, which have 
passed away and given place to the present. 

Beneath the trunk of a Scotch fir in the lowest 
stratum, was found a few years since a well defined 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 225 

flint implement of the French pattern. Man then 
lived in Denmark in the " fir period." The beech 
is not found fossil in the boo:s of Denmark thous^h 
it has flourished there for at least four thousand 
years. Tbree thousand years ago according to 
Roman history, these beeches were noted for their 
luxuriance; and as no visible change has taken 
place in their growth and luxuriance within that 
period, we are safe in adding another thousand 
years to the period of their past history. Allowing 
then the same time for each variety of the oak and 
the same for the Scotch fir, we have for the age of 
the flint implement 16,000 years. 

The three epochs of vegetation the fir, oak, the 
two varieticv'J in one, and the beech coincide closely 
with the three ages of human progress as indicated 
by the works of art found at different depths in the 
peat, being distinguished respectively as the stone, 
bronze and iron periods by the Scandinavian 
Archeologists. The earliest of the stone imple- 
ments show an advance over those of the French 
gravel beds by having been sharpened and polished 
by grinding, and hence this age which has been 
called above the " stone age" in contradistinction to 
what has also been called above the " flint age" is 
called by the Scandinavians the " later" stone 
period. Some idea of the physical changes that 
have taken place since the occupation of the penin- 
sula by man may be learned by reference to the 
habits of the people as indicated by the "shell 
mounds," or " kitchen refuse heaps," found at vari- 



226 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

ous points along the coast of the Danish Islands. 
These refuse heaps consist mostly of the shells of 
the oyster, cockle and other moUusks, used as food 
by the natives, with the bones of various quad- 
rupeds, birds and fish, such as rude hunters and 
fishers would be supposed to use. Some of these 
mounds are 1000 feet long, and 150 to 200 wide, 
and three to ten feet deep. In all parts of them are 
flint knives, hatchets and other implements of stone, 
wood, horn and bone, with ashes coals and cinders, 
and rude pottery, but no metalic implements what- 
ever and hence not referable to a period so late as 
the " bronze age." 

The bones of the Urus are the only ones of ex- 
tinct quadrupeds and these are found in great 
abundance. The bones of the only domestic ani- 
mal are those of the dog. No shell mounds occur 
on those parts of the coast that are washed by the 
German ocean, a fact accounted for by the encroach- 
ment of the sea upon the land on that side of the 
peninsula, which encroachment is still going on. 
Another and very remarkable fact is that the shells 
of the oyster and cockle of the Baltic mounds are 
of full size, as are those of the mussel and periwin- 
kle ; while at the present time these waters are so 
deficient in salt that the oyster can live only near 
its entrance, and the cockle, periwinkle and mussel 
are dwarfed to one-third their natural size. This 
shows that in the time of the aboriginal inhabitants 
of the country the entrance to the Baltic was wider 
than at present, and the proportion of salt water 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 227 

from the ocean to the fresh from the land was grea- 
ter than now. Another fact indicative of a great 
change in the physical conditions of the country, 
is the total disappearance of the Scotch fir, which 
will not flourish at the present time in Denmark 
even when introduced and cared for ; the oak is also 
well nigh gone, while the beech is in fall vigor 
stiJl and has been for an indefinite period. The 
bones of the auk and the penguin, the seal and the 
beaver, are abundant in the shell mounds, but 
these two sea fowls lono^ aojo retreated to Iceland 
and Greenland where they are at present nearly 
extinct, the beaver has been gone in all historic 
time, while the seal is a rare visitor upon the Dan- 
ish coast. 

That these early inhabitants perished at the hands 
of invaders is most probable, as in their refuse 
heaps no metalic implements are met with, but ap- 
pearing in great abundance suddenly as if none 
others were left in existence at the time of their in- 
troduction. Had the bronze weapons been found 
mingled with the stone implements, there would be 
reason to believe the early inhabitants advanced in 
the arts to such a degree as to be able to work the 
native copper of the country and reduce tin from its 
ores and amalgamate the two ; but as such a phe- 
nomenon is nowhere meet with, the presumption is 
that invaders brought the use of metals along with 
them and occupied the territory to the extermination 
of its original inhabitants who used only stone im- 
plements. The bronze age was one of long duration 



228 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

as the great improvement in the pattern of bronze 
implements and also in the pottery ware of that 
period clearly indicate. The sabstitution of iron 
for bronze indicates another great step in the on- 
ward march of man, and characterizes another period 
in the history of these ancient people. This brings 
us down to historic times as the association of iron 
implements with existing vegetation clearly proves* 
Thus we trace back the history of Denmark by 
these mute records through the age of the beeches 
or the historic period four thousand years, and still 
there remain the times of her unwritten, history, the 
oak or bronze age and the stone age or the age of 
the Scotch fir, each of equal duration with the 
historic, and yet we touch not yet the flint age, or 
at most but its threshold, while its calendar of 
years must forever remain unrevealed. Amid the 
voices from an unfathomed past so numerous so 
loud and so clear as these, the feeble tones of " six 
thousand years" sink to an almost inaudible cad- 
ence. 

Passing over the "Swiss lake dwellings" familiar 
to every reader, the Irish lake Islands spoken of by 
Sir Charles Lyell in his " Antiquities of Man," the 
thread, plated rush, &c., found in the rock of Peru 
eighty-five feet above the ocean, and numerous 
human remains in the breccias of South America as 
so many unnecessary but still competent witnesses 
to the antiquity man and the incorrectness of the 
Biblical chronology, as well as its history of Adam 
as being the first man holy and perfect, from whose 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 229 

moral and mental status we are all fallen, this 
chapter must close with a few reflections. 

The flint implements of the valleys of the Somme, 
Seine, Ouse and others as well as those found in the 
various cave deposits, are of the rudest order, and 
mark the dawnings of artistic skill in the human 
mind. Through the later ages of the " later stone," 
the bronze and iron periods, a steady improvement 
in skill becomes apparent which is still made mani- 
fest in the later historic periods, even down to the 
present time, thus in passing, proving the incorrect- 
ness of the Bible history of a state of perfection 
from which man has fallen to the depths of total 
depravity. The forms of the ancient skulls from 
osseous caverns and peat bogs, prove a less degree 
of intellectuality among men formerly than now, and 
that the image of God is more apparent in the "hu- 
man face divine " of to day, than in that of any 
previous generation of man on the face of the Globe; 
and that whatever may be the charms investing the 
Eden of the Bible seen through the dim religious 
mists of the past, it cannot by the present observing 
and thinking generation be considered a historical 
verity. In regard to Sir Charles Lyell and his po- 
sition in regard to the " Natchez bone,'' it will be 
no injustice to that great author to state that, while 
he does not give scientific credence to the fact that 
fossil brings to light, it cannot really effect the 
force of the statements made nor the inferences 
emergent from them ; nor should Dr. D. who found 
20 



230 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

the bone and presented it to science and the world, 
regard it as an expression of any lack of confidence 
in him as a geologist and discoverer. The course 
of Mr. Lyell in this particular instance is one that 
has ever characterized him under like circum- 
stances. He not only withholds judgment but 
openly expresses doubts in regard to the scientific 
achievements of his fellow explorers, until he has 
been to the precise spot and disintered similar re- 
mains to those that had convinced the first finders 
of such remains, whose names seldom go in their 
true light before the scientific world, but the facts 
they have elucidated rest afterwards upon the testi- 
mony of Mr. Lyell, who in reality has only re-ex- 
amined the mounds, caves and gravel beds laid open 
by his enterprising and pioneering predcessors. 
If this criticism seems tart already, another drop of 
acid remains to be added — the abilitiesof his pioneer 
explorers for which he gave them little or no credit 
till visiting himself the spots they had previously 
explored, have always been vindicated and his 
doubts removed by such visits. This was the case 
on his visit to the valley of the Somme, his visit to 
Liege and examination of the collection of Dr. 
Schmerling, though a second visit was requisite for 
the full accomplishment of his conversion, the Brix- 
ham cave, the cave of Aurignac, and doubtless 
would have been the case had he visited the precise 
spot of the ''Natchez bone," which he did not do, as 
the author is fully convinced, not only by the state- 
ments of Dr. D., but by those of Dr. Nott of Mobile 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 231 

and Bev. Mr. Allen of England, whose correspon- 
dence he has been fortunate in having access to, and 
who put forth the statement respectively upon the 
personal acknowledgment of Mr. Lyell to them 
separately in private conversation. Hence v/hat- 
ever weight may be due to the judgment of Sir 
Charles Lyell in this instance, it is only the judg- 
ment, as is that of Prof. Leida of Philadelphia, who 
sympathizes with Mr. Lyell in his views, of one 
who knew in reality nothing of the facts from per- 
sonal observation. 

Whatever may be the plausibility of the 
theory of the bone having fallen from a mound 
at the top of the bluff and subsequently cov- 
ered by earth containing the bones of extinct 
mammalia from a subsequent cave of a portion of 
the bank lower down so as to place the human 
beneath animal remains, one thing is certain, nei- 
ther of these remains could possibly have found 
their way twenty feet vertically and thirty latter- 
ally, into the undisturbed post pliocene clay where 
the human was really found and disinterred from 
the partially indurated matrix. 

If the foregoing array of geological facts does not 
disprove conclusively the Biblical chronology and 
history of man, then are we here presented with the 
strange anomaly that facts afford no ground for safe 
induction, and science is no sure guide to truth ; 
and the mind that fails to be convinced by them 
must present the not unfrequent phenomenon of a 
combination, through religious prejudice, of mental 



232 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

obduracy and stultification, and should accept as 
peculiarly appropriate to itself a large share of the 
opprobrium of God's advice respecting Judah, "let 
him alone, he is joined to his idols." 




Xo. -L 





No. 2. 



Xo. 5 




Xo. 1, 



CHAPTEK XII. 
Antiquities of the Mississippi Valley. 



By M. W. Dickeson, M. D. 



" The great antiquity America, lay buried for 
iTiousands of years; and a large part of the earth is 
still in the Urn to us." 

There is always a secret delight in reviewing 
faithful pictures of ages past, of our ancestors on 
earth, and our predecessors on the soil of our homes, 
or where we spend the scenes of our own lives. 

It is manifest that there are noble resources (for 
history) still remaining if we will but apply our- 
selves to diligent enquiry. There are in every 
climate some secret history, some traces of a primi- 
tive and universal language; and perhaps there is 
no part of the world that would contribute to this 
purpose more than the great Mississippi Yalley. 
There these evidences now stand amid the wide 
waste of desolating years, as a beacon or land mark, 
pointing to all that is lofty and magnificent, great 
and venerable in the character of the " days of old.'' 
We need no ruins of Pompei no Herculaneum, no 
incomprehensible stone-henge to move our wonder; 
we have abundant themes of unparalleled surprise 



234 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

in following down the gigantic structures of tliat 
unhistoried people of tbe Mississippi Valley. 

There we can contemplate that portion of 
America's historical incident, that lies veiled in the 
mist of imperfect record; and challenge the devoted 
attention of the student of antiquity. Thousands 
of the earth structures of huge dimensions yet re- 
main unexplored in the western and southern 
wilds; and centuries have been allowed to pass 
without the possession by America of a collection 
of such of her relics and monuments as have escaped 
the ravages of time, and man's destructive hand. 
These silent yet eloquent, witnesses, reveal the his- 
tory of past grandeur and power of this long lost 
nation. From these structures may yet be collected 
many thousands of rare and interesting relics, which 
illustrate the customs and arts of the ancient people 
who built them. 

These very spots, in the time of its Aboriginal 
sovereignty, were the grand theatre of myriads who 
in their proudest and most palmy days, congregated 
to enjoy their favorite amusements by the margin 
of these delightful enclosures; thousands of monu- 
mental records skirt this river, and bear testimony 
to their past. The remains of millions of human 
beings, of all ages, from helpless infancy to sturdy 
manhood, are now reposing in those their places of 
final rest ; and the busy hand of time is fast re- 
transforming them into dust. Who were the 
mighty masters of these broad lands? No history 
can reveal their earthly sojourn ; the same blue sky, 



BIBLE IN" THE BALANCE. 235 

the same green fields, tlie same wide waters remain, 
but the living mass of beings that once animated 
this scene, are all gone — gone to the grave ! These 
sacred and august temples and ramparts, now rear 
their stately heads high in the air. 

They once echoed the sounds of many voices, but 
they are now hushed in the stillness of death ; and 
the awful silence that reigns around is broken only 
now and then by the tread of a curious visitor. To 
unclasp the volume of the Mississippi valley an 
historic record must be spread over a period of 
several thousand annual changes. And as no his- 
tory exists for us to have recourse to to prove identity 
back to time immemorial, we are necessarily com- 
pelled to fall back to these antiquities and religious 
rites there exercised, which are the strongest proofs 
of the characters of a nation when no written his- 
tory exists.* 

The lofty mounds are crested with sturdy oaks 
which have stood for centuries, since their deser- 
tion, and are now nourished by the decayed mate- 
rials of a former generation. That the reader may 
better understand what we designate as a mound 

* That the Aborigine of North America were notably 
populous is undeniable. And though habitations are entirely 
unknown to any Nation upon the present face of the 
earth, yet the immensity of old works in the form of gigantic 
earth heaps such as mounds, fortifications, bastions ram- 
parts, fossa, and thousands of acres of human bone heaps, 
urn burials, etc., testify their immense population and posses- 
sions. Although the page of death clearly reveals the immen- 
sity of their population, history remains silent. 



236 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

we have figured the celebrated structure at 
Biluxie. This noble heap of interesting ruins, 
stands on the eastern shore of the Bay, and the iron 
hand of time is fast hurrying it to oblivion. (See 
plate opposite page 209.) 

This time-worn mound, situated near the shore 
of the bay and which appears to have been con- 
structed many centuries ago, and formed entirely 
from sea shells contains (like all others) many an- 
cient and interesting relics. 

Its great dimensions, and the insurmountable 
difficulty in digging through the dense mass, ren- 
dered oar examination but superficial. Neverthe- 
less we exhumed many skeletons of huge dimension 
and heads flattened, large terra cotta urns and 
stone and bone implements and ornaments. 

The crania were flattened in the upper and back- 
ward form, and were of large "dimensions. (See 
Figure No. 1). 

On the summit and a short distance below the 
surface we found a huge urn completely filled with 
human bones, which was broken in getting it out. 
There were the bones of several skeletons, showing 
that they had compounded their bones; passionately 
endeavoring to continue their living unions ; and 
when distance of death denied such conjuuctions, 
unsatisfied affections conceived some satisfaction in 
being neighbors in the grave. (See Fig. 2). 

Around the base of the mound has been picked 
Tip as disintegration takes place, many fiue stone 
relics, such as pipes, plummets, beads, chisels, 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 237 

stamps, mortars, pestles, terra cotta heads and small 
animals. A gentleman from New Orleans sent me 
several small vases of a dark olive color and finely 
ornamented, one of which was completely filled 
with fine carvings on a dark green stone. (See 
Fig. 3). We might name a thousand more mounds 
of much greater magnitude than the above de- 
scribed, which have come under my observation, 
such as the great Seltzertown mound Chamberlain's, 
White Apple "Village, FortEosalie, Bingamans etc., 
etc., where billions of cubic yards of earth are piled 
up hundreds of feet, with a summit level containing 
upwards of twelve acres. At their base they ap- 
pear like huge walls stretching up to heaven, and 
it requires but a stretch of the imagination to fancy 
them mouldering bastions and ramparts of some 
ancient fortress. No words can express the emotion 
of the soul as you look upwards and contemplate 
the almost perpendicular escarpments. High on 
one of these cloud caped mounds stands " Old Fort 
Rosalie," the scene of many a hard fought battle, 
and of many an ignominious torture. Many singu- 
lar legends are connected with this spot, and super- 
stition has gathered around these ruins a bewitching 
mystery. In 1542, DeSoto sat here at the council 
fire of the Natchez Indians. In 1716, Fort Rosalie 
was erected on the summit of the aboriginal temple ; 
in 1723, the French were massacred by the Natchez 
on this tumulus ; in 1763 it was ceded to Great 
Britain ; in 1783, claimed by Spain as a part of 
Florida ; in 1798, that power relinquished it to the 



238 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

United States ; in 1801, it was formed into a terri- 
tory ; in 1817 admitted into the Union ; in 1861 se- 
ceded ; and in 1868 was brought back to the Union. 

These gigantic earth heaps externally tell truths 
for several thousands of years ; but their internal 
structure is a ponderous volume, and like the 
Egyptian mummy lays bare innumerable inscrip- 
tions, to be studied by the intelligent antiquarian ; 
and reveal astounding facts to the student of per- 
petuity of thousands of years, even by everlasting 
languages. 

The following cut will give the reader some idea 
of a vertical section of a burial mound. (See 
Fig. 4. Around the top and sides may be perceived 
a dark rim entirely enveloping the mound ; this is 
the surface soil, and the result of a long period of 
decomposition of both animal and vegetable matter. 

The continuous portion of the stratum is of a 
light yellow loam varying from three to five feet. 
In many of the large mounds these surface strata 
occur at regular intervals throughout the entire 
mound. Occasionally they contain stumps of trees 
completely carbonized, giving from thirty to sixty 
laminae indicating a period of sixty years at least 
since the last burial. 

Trees of immense dimensions have been cut 
from these summits whose laminae have extended 
beyond eight hundred years, an4 indications exist 
tending to the belief that huge forests have existed 
previous to their growth, which may have been the 
second and even the third production, and covering 



BIBLE IN" THE BALANCE. 239 

a i^eriod of from twelve to fifteen hundred years, 
since its abandonment. 

The stratum underlying the surface soil is gen- 
erally composed of a gravelly loam, and contains 
the bone heap, or conglomerate ball burials. The 
bone heaps are generally arranged systematically, 
theinnominatse and scapulae form the corners, upon 
which the long bones are crossed, on which the 
small bones are placed, and the head caps the pile, 
(see fig. No. 7). The conglomerate balls are large 
oval masses of burnt human bones mixed with 
ashes, coals, broken pottery and stone ornaments. 
They occupy a position near the edge of the 
mound. Sometimes by breaking open these balls, 
we find a finely finished small vase filled with 
light ashes and ornaments. Beneath you have the 
skeleton burial, placed with their heads to the east 
and slightly elevated. From the careless burial 
and common pottery and ornaments, I am disposed 
to think they were the cannale or common people, 
fig. No. 5, will give you an upper view of the 
position in which they are placed across the mound. 
But one stratum intervenes between the above de- 
scribed and the altar or hearth, which is only 
found in a certain character of mounds. This 
earthen floor occupies two-thirds the entire di- 
mensions of the mound ; it has a depression in the 
top centre, which is usually filled with ashes and 
coals, burnt human bones and ornaments. The 
foregoing description will give a tolerable idea 
of the interior of a mound. In the larger ones this 



240 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

arrangement is continued till it oftentimes readier 
fifteen strata. Of the mounds of North America I 
have arranged in a tabular form, 83,000, and 
opened 1033. On the summit of some of the larger 
mounds, evidences still remain of brick structures 
occupying them. At the Seltzertown mound was 
found a portion of a brick wall ten feet long; some 
of the bricks were 15 by 18 inches. The most 
interesting portion of the mounds is its Hydrio- 
phia; or Urn-burial. They occur in great numbers 
in the burial mounds, evidently showing that they 
believed in the durability of the soul, hence, 
the custom of burying vessels filled with food, etc. 
Some of the urns were painted and covered with 
earthen lids, and such as had no lids, the earth ap- 
peared closely pressed in the neck of them. In 
many we found the bones and ashes half mortared 
to the sides of the urn, and long roots of grass and 
shrubberv, were wreathed about the bones. Abo- 
riginal North American ancient frugality was so 
severe, that they allowed no gold to attend the 
corpses. Whether these elegant pearls which are 
found in great abundance, ornaments, etc., were 
burnt upon the neck and body of the dead ; or cast 
into the fire by some affectionate friend, we are 
unable to say. We did not find the bay leaves, as 
in the tomb of St. Humbert, or the cypress of the 
temple of Diana, or the wood of the olive rod of 
Aaron. But though we did not find these, yet we 
missed not the woody substances, for the bones 
were not so clearly packed but some coals were 





X(>. G, 



No, 7. 




No. 8. 





No. 9. 



No. 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 241 

found amongst them ; a way in which our Aborig- 
ine made wood perpetual. Coals are found fresh 
after 2000 years, as the growth and surface soil 
would attest. We do not believe these urns to 
have descended into the earth as naked as they ap- 
pear when exhumed. 

They may have been as much ladened with 
flowers, &c. as the Urn of Philopsemen, and who 
knows but that the bones in these large urns, like 
that of Democritus, might have been buried up in 
honey. He that lay in a golden urn is not likely 
to find a quiet resting place; where profit has 
prompted, no age has wanted such miners. Gold 
once out of the earth is no more due unto it. What 
is wantonously committed to the ground is reasona- 
bly resumed from it. Let monuments decorate man's 
acts, not riches. The commerce of the living is not 
to be transferred to the dead. It is not injustice to 
take that which none complains to lose. No one is 
wronged where no one is possessor. How the bulk 
of a man should sink into a few ounces of ashes, to 
be retained in a small vase may seem strange. In- 
dependent of the mound the whole south-west ap- 
pears to have been one great burial ground. On 
the Yazoo river sides after the ploughing season is 
over and the surface washed with the rains, you 
may travel for twenty or thirty miles, and at almost 
every step place your foot upon a fragment of hu- 
man bone and pottery. On the sides of the Yazoo 
river, near the sunflower may yet be seen a perfect 
21 



242 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

Stratum of human bones, upwards of two feet in 
thickness, and five hundred feet in length. It ap- 
pears on both sides of the river. After the de- 
tructive tornado that swept across Natchez in the 
year of 1844, I followed its track for thirty miles 
and in the roots and soil of the uprooted trees, 
(which were thousands, and of gigantic size), we 
found Aboriginal bones, pottery, implements and 
ornaments. 

In this investigation I found upwards of five 
hundred stone and bone relics of these people. In 
Arkansas and Louisiana were found ovens filled 
with the ware of the Aborigine, in position placed 
for burning. The soil (a dark rich friable loam), 
had made sufficient to cover them several feet, and 
large forest oaks were growing over them. One 
has lately been found in Mississippi near Yicksburg. 
The ovens are built of clay, oblong oval in shape, 
two and a half feet high, with holes at each end. 
Many pieces of the pottery were whole and highly 
finished. They occupied the position in which they 
were placed when under the process of burning. 
The one found near Little Ruck, Arkansas was 
quite extensive. 

These gigantic systems collectively present a pic- 
ture truly wonderful ; and the antiquary stands 
amazed at the evidences of extensive population, 
immense fortifications, religious system and a great 
antiquity. Altars containing billions of cubic feet 
of earth piled into giant heaps, apparently the labor 
of centuries, huge walls and bastions extending for 



BIBLE IlSr THE BALANCE. 243 

miles protected at all points with a military skill 
surpassing any thing of the kind of the present 
age, and these the works of a people whom we 
designate as savages. Long before the epoch of 
Columbus' discovery, the builders of these struc- 
tures had arrived at a maximum of population, and 
were concentrated into thousands of hamlets and 
towns which had become ruins, and other nations 
had sprung up upon these ruins amounting to mil- 
lions. But this extensive and antique continent 
was not fated to be always a hunting ground. The 
hords of European emigrants set their restless feet 
upon the soil, all was quickly changed. 

Surprising as are the mutations which the earth 
has undergone, they are not greater than those to 
which man is subject. At present we have little 
more knowledge of the past career of mankind than 
of the planets. Of the early inhabitants of the Mis- 
sissippi valley, nothing is known from its present 
history. Their origin, epoch,- and deeds are alike 
shrouded in silence and gloom. Can any thing be 
now ascertained of these remotely extinct people 
whom history does not mention ? Can any accurate 
data be obtained as to their early existence and 
their departure from the face of the great valley ? 
Certainly. Few people, civilized or uncivilized 
have passed away without leaving some trace of 
their sojourn. These people have left us lasting 
monuments and relics amounting to millions. The 
earth in many places is charged with such remains 
and they are unimpeachable witnesses of the condi- 



244 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

tion of the people who owned them. The whole 
valley abounds with these monuments and relics of 
ancient magnanimity, and time which antiquates 
antiquity, and heathen art to make dust of all 
things, hath yet spared these majestic monuments 
for the gaze of the present generation. Arts as well 
as emperors experience revolutions. They pass 
from a state of infancy through progressive im- 
provement, to that of degradation, and return by 
degrees to the precise point from which they set 
out. Had the Aborigine of the great valley made 
as good a provision for their names as they have 
for their relics ; they would not have erred so grossly 
in the art of perpetuation. But to subsist in bones, 
and ashes, and be but pyramidically extant is a fal- 
lacy in duration. 

To those myriads of inhabitants and innumerable 
nations that have come within the sphere of our 
limited observations, the greater part have existed 
destitute of hyeroglyphics, history, or any stand- 
ing memorials save the gigantic earth heaps, and 
their stone and terra-cotta implements. Our histo- 
ries and traditions of those people, superficial and 
imperfect as they most certainly are, are abundant- 
ly sufficient to convince us that extended provinces, 
cities and empires have risen and fallen, and that 
among the nations, semi-barbarous and civilized, 
persecution and toleration, riches and poverty alter- 
nately succeeded each other. Is it possible then for 
us from history and traditions so imperfect and 
superficial, and with so little to assist us but our 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 245 

own observations to fix with certainty the changes 
and incidents that have happened to them? The 
monuments indeed of civilization are generally 
speaking of a perishable nature, scarcely do they 
survive the people who formed them; but with those 
of our Aborigine it is different, they built for 
eternity, built their monuments with the material 
that the great author of the universe taught them, 
the earth which the disintegrating hand of time 
cannot destroy, only yielding to violent operations 
of nature and man's destruction. The builders of 
these structures have long since departed, and none 
are acquainted with their names; but they still 
stand silent, grey and desolate as of old. The 
spirit of the great architects has fled away, but the 
works of their hands remain. The great river 
flows down from the mountains to the sea, just as it 
did in those palmy days, man only has changed. 



From the foregoing description of the monumen- 
tal remains in the great Mississippi valley by an 
indefatigable explorer, shrewd observer, and true 
philosopher, author of a forthcoming and invaluable 
work on the Stone and Terra cotta age of America, 
some thoughts arise in my mind which, without a 
real feeling of their necessity here to the purposes 
of the present work, I am inclined to add to the 
chapter by my friend, trusting he will not feel that 
I do it with a thought that his work is incomplete. 
I am not aware that the mounds of this region 



246 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

have ever been explored with a view to a reveal- 
ment of any light they may throw upon the history 
of the past, and hence I take a greater pleasure in 
beino^ the first to brino^ these slumberinor records to 
bear witness to their high antiquity, and to reveal 
another page in the world's history and chronology. 

The reader has been surprised that 83,000 of 
these earth structures have been examined and 
numbered in this great valley. Says Dr. D., " I have 
opened no less than 1033 of these mounds." This 
great number, and the enormous dimensions of 
many of them indicate an ancient population of this 
region far more dense than the one occupying the 
valley at the discovery of the region by the Euro- 
peans. 

They reveal another fact, and that is, that the 
nation that constructed most of them, and those 
most ancient was far superior in the arts of life to 
the Indians who inhabited the valley when discov- 
ered by De Soto. They had passed their prime 
ages before, and the days of their decline were 
being rounded into centuries when the foot of the 
European invaded their soil. They bring to light 
still another fact, that they once had communica- 
tion with the Eastern Continent and corroborate 
the statement in a previous chapter that " the an- 
cient Egyptian story of the island of Atlantis can 
only refer to America." 

Over 25,000 relics of various kinds have been 
obtained from these mounds, and from one alone 
were obtained over 500. These consist in addition 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 247 

to those mentioned by Dr. D., in his chapter, of 
of stone axes differing in pattern from the celts of 
Europe being made without the groove for the 
withe handle, but tapering towards the top, and 
worked to a certain bevel, indicated by a stone guage 
for that purpose resembling somewhat in form a 
canoe into which the axe was made to fit with the 
utmost precision in all directions, edge, sides, and 
top. These axes bear a high polish, and are of 
the hard porphyritic green stone closely resembling 
the Egyptian porphyry, and is not found native in 
the Mississippi valley. 

One ornament, the figure of a tortoise, in Egyp- 
tian green porphyry, is a fac simile of one in the 
British museum, found some years ago in a tomb 
in Egypt, and proves beyond a doubt an ancient 
intercommunication between the two continents as 
that peculiar type of porphyry is found only in 
Egypt, and further that variety of tortoise is not 
found either living or fossil on this continent. 
When, where, and by whom was this figure fabri- 
cated ? History in Egypt and India carries us back 
six, eight, and ten thousand years, but it touches 
not the date of the voyages to the " Great Conti- 
nent" beyond the ocean. 

The mystic number seven is observed in the 
grouping of these mounds ; (see plate opposite page 
185). These seven mounds sufSiced for the burial 
places of a village, city or community, and were, as 
they were usually walled in by earth work, doubt- 
less kept sacred to the repose of the dead. Their 



248 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

manner of bone burial anciently was peculiar. The 
earth was first excavated to a depth of four feet, 
and a tier of bones covering the area, which in 
many instances was that of several acres laid down 
and eight feet of earth thrown upon them. These 
bones must have been the accumulation of many 
years in a dead house or on scaffolding, till a sufli- 
cient number had accumulated to cover the area at 
a single burial. This accumulation must have re- 
quired many years. A second burial was per- 
formed by digging four feet into the top of the 
mound already formed, and covering the second 
layer eight feet deep, which, would raise the mound 
at each burial four feet. In this manner many of 
them have been raised 100 feet indicating 25 plat- 
forms where the dead were deposited. The accu- 
mulation of soil several inches in depth, between 
these platforms and the occurrence of stumps of 
considerable size not removed by a subsequent 
burial indicate tbat these periods were many years 
apart. Again the trees whose rings of annual 
growth prove them to be 800 years old on the tops 
of some of them, prove them to belong to a very 
ancient period. But a hoary antiquity attaches to 
/ them by the accumulation in some instances of a 
foot and a half ot vegetable soil over their entire 
surfaces since the reception oftheir last instalment 
of the dead. Here we have data for a calculation 
of the probable age of the structures. Twenty 
seasons of burial fifty years apart would make 
1000 years for the construction of an entire mound, 




They observed the mystic number seven in the grouping of their uiounds. 

{See page 247.) 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 249 

and for the accumulation of a foot and a half of 
vegetable soil on the top at the rate of not more 
than one-fourth of an inch in a century, the winds 
preventing a more rapid increase, would require a 
period of not less than 7000 years, which would 
cause the first dead deposited in these ancient 
burial places to mount to more than sixty centuries 
before our era. ISTor is this calculation a fanciful 
one. M. Boucher de Perthes and Baron von Hum- 
boldt, by careful observations, found that the accu- 
mulation of peat from terrestrial vegetation in the 
bogs of Denmark, and the bed of the Somme, was 
only three centimetres, or one half an inch in a cen- 
tury, where all was saved. Not over one-fourth 
of an inch then could be the growth of soil on the 
top of a mound swept by the winds and perhaps 
frequently reduced by fire. Gray and time-worn 
with an antiquity that no man probably shall ever 
know, stand these sepulchres of a nation that no 
history has or will ever recognize. That they had 
a religion, not Jewish or Christian, their rude 
altars where they burned the bodies of their dead, 
leaving their ashes on the same, in funeral urnsj 
abundantly testify. This regard for their dead in 
connection with their altars shows their social and 
religious status, their stupendous mvDund structures 
and fortifications the degree of their power, their 
stone implements and sculptured ornaments, their 
attainment in the arts and the turf and peat above 
their graves their great antiquity. How stand 
these ancient mound builders in relation to the 



250 BIBLE IN" THE BALANCE. 

man who transgressed and fell in Eden ? Moulder- 
ing bones were here before God planted his first 
orchard according to the Bible, and these people 
cannot be justly charged with having purloined 
and eaten the fruit he had reserved. 

The mind refuses to let go these interesting ex- 
aminations without visiting the great pyramid of 
Cholula in Mexico, and contemplating its grandeur 
and antiquity, lost in the tide of years, as well as 
those who piled up that huge structure of brick 
and earth. Further still the mind reaches to the 
august ruins of XJxmal, Palenque, Kabah, and 
others of Central America, with their truncated 
pyramids and Cyclopean arches, that prove their 
founders to have been kindred to the builders of the 
arches and pyramids of India and Egypt in an age 
anterior to any oriental history, and whose very 
existence, but for these, would drift unobserved 
amid the great breakers of time. Nor must we 
forget Chi Chen, 

*' Whose lofty pillars stand sublime, 

Flinging their shadows from on high, 
Like dials which the wizard time, 
Had raised to count his ages by." 

Oblivion covers the memory of her builders, and 
on the site of their ancient grandeur, 

*' The desert serpent dwells alone, 
Where grass o'ergrows each mouldering stone, 
And stones themselves to ruin grown, 
Are gray and death-like old." 



CHAPTEE XIII. 
Origin of the Jewish Eeligion and Eitual ? 

No greater indignity can be shown a prophet, than 
to tell him he is not inspired by the highest intelli- 
gence that speaks to man. Without regard to the 
just claims of others as being as highly inspired as 
himself, he at once puts forth his prediction or his 
inspiration, as settling all controversy and being 
the " end of the law." Through him the "highest" 
has spoken, and in his word there is no ambiguity, 
and from his decision there is no appeal. 

" There is no Allah but Allah, and Mahommed 
is his prophet," is not the language of the Mahom- 
medan alone. It is, and has been the language of 
every prophet, and sect led by prophets, since the 
world began. It may not be the language of a 
true inspiration, but seldom or never has the voice of 
inspiration been unattended by such an accompani- 
ament. Hindoos, Persians, Greeks and Chinese all 
partake of the general pride of being the true ora- 
cles of the divine spirit, and special favorites of 
God, on account of being " a peculiar people," and 
preeminently qualified to be his chosen messengers to 
the inhabitants of earth. Each delights in his su- 
perior adaptation to the purposes of the over- 
shadowing presence, and transmits the message 
with his own peculiar seal upon it. 



252 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

The Jews furnish us with no exception to this 
general rule. Their God is the great " I am." 
Their prophets are the " chosen" of him. Their 
sayings are the exponents of His will and law. 
Their interests are his interests. Their sacred tem- 
ples are his places of retreat, where " he manifests 
himself to them as he does not unto the world." 
Their laws, derived from him as their great law- 
giver, are superior to the laws of other nations, 
their rights and interests paramount to those of 
their neighbors, and Canaan must die that Israel 
may live. The glory of their God is of greater con- 
sequence than the glory of any other god, and to 
show it forth, Egypt must bow her head beneath 
the weight of the Almighty's hand. Her proud 
river must become a " w^ave incarnadine," loath- 
some reptiles fill her pantries, creeping vermin in- 
fest her people, locusts, hail and fire destroy her 
crops before the harvest, murrain cut off her herds 
and her flocks, darkness envelope her land as with 
a pall of night, the destroying angel kill her tender 
first born, her departing enemies spoil her people of 
their possessions, and the sea, ever blushing at the 
premeditated divine trick, swallow up her proud 
monarch and noble warriors in the rear of Gods 
chosen children. 

To impress his subjects with his majesty and 
power and terrors, Sinai quakes on his rocky 
foundations, veils his stony brow in thick clouds of 
darkness, and lifts the pall only with the fiery 
fingers of the lightnings. To feed his hungry peo- 



BIBLE IN" THE BALANCE. 253 

pie the clouds drop down abimdaDce of manna, and 
from the viewless womb of the winds come millions 
upon millions of quails. To give them drink, the 
seamless rock sends forth its stream of crystal 
waters. 

To prove his constant care of his wandering sons 
and daughters, sandals and vestments "wax not 
old," and moth and mildew are arrested in their 
work of destruction. To instruct them in religion 
and morals, stones are made his oracles, and the 
finger of God does the mysterious lettering; and to 
show his pleasure in the worship of the Jew, fire 
comes down from heaven and consumes the sacrifice, 
and his presence ever dwells in the invisible she- 
chinah of the " Sanctum Sanctorum." 

That Abraham mingled freely with the people of 
other nations and derived many of his religious 
ideas from them, is most apparent from the similarity 
of his religious doctrines to those of many of the 
ancient nations, and it is not a supposable case that 
these nations all took their religion from him. A 
nation without a religion would be an anomaly in- 
deed. Eeligion is not a something engrafted upon 
a nation from a foreign stock, without a God and a 
hope in the world before. 

According to Christian showing the history of 
all nations is proof positive of this assertion. The 
Christian world asserts that God has made two, and 
only two revelations of himself to man, one through 
Moses and the prophets, and the other through 
Christ and the apostles. 



254: BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

But as tlie former was made to the Jews in the 
earl J days of their polity, and the latter to the 
same nation in the days of their age and decrepitude 
it follows that all the other nations must have been 
entirely without any religion, or derived one from 
some other source. The first supposition we know 
to be untrue, and hence the latter becomes a logi- 
cal fact. 

All nations and people and sects claim for their 
religion and theology the exalted paternity of a 
divine inspiration, and none more loudly claim this 
than Jews and Christians. Their religion and 
theology are of divine, while all others are of human 
or Satanic origin. This subject requires a two-fold 
investigation. First^ a camparison with the theol- 
ogy and religion of other nations wherein will 
become apparent the difference and superiority, if 
any, of the Jewish and Christian, over any and 
all others, and, second^ historically and chronologi- 
cally, wherein it will appear which may claim the 
credit of priority, and if identity becomes appa- 
rent in the first investigation, then it will remain to 
be shown whether other nations copied from the 
Jews and Christians, or those sects borrowed from 
cotemporary or more ancient nations, the beliefs 
and doctrines they so persistently put forth as origi- 
nal. 

As introductory to this investigation, a glance at 
the relative ages of ancient nations and languages, 
as brought to view in chapters eight and nine, is of 
the first importance. As has been already said that 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 255 

no nation ever lived without some form of religion 
and religious worship, so it may also be said, there 
are few nations of antiquity that have not had 
sacred writings from the hands of their most emi- 
nent men, those most deeply imbued with wisdom 
and piety, and hence supposed in some mysterious 
way to have had access to the divine mind, or been 
admitted to the counsels of the universal soul. 

These sacred writings are considered by them as 
the voice of God through his inspired instruments, 
and are invested, to them, with all the authority of 
high heaven. These constitute their bibles, and 
are to them all the Jewish bible is to the Jew, or 
the scriptures to the Chrirtian church. By a com- 
parison of their fundamental doctrines it will ap- 
pear what are the points of difference between them 
and the relative merits of the systems of theology 
and religion they contain. 

The Hindoo scriptures inculcate the idea of one 
God who fills immensity. The Yedas declare 
" There is one living and true God, everlasting 
without parts or passions ; of infinite power, wisdom 
and goodness; the Maker and Preserver of all 
things." 

" What and how the Supreme Being is, cannot be 
ascertained. We can only describe him by his 
works; in like manner as we, not knowing the real 
nature of the sun, explain him to be the cause of the 
succession of days and epochs." That spirit who is 
distinct from matter and from all beings contained 
in matter, is not various. He is one, and he is be- 



256 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

yond description ; whose glory is so great there can 
be no image of him. He is the incomprehensible, 
spirit who illuminates all, and delights all, from 
whom all proceed, by whom they live after ihey 
are born, and to whom all must return. Nothing 
but the Supreme Being should be adored by a wise 
man." 

" He overspreads all creatures. He is merely 
Spirit without the form either of a minute body, or 
an extended one, which is liable to impression or 
organization. He is the ruler of the intellect, self- 
existent, pure, perfect, omniscient and omnipresent. 
He has from all eternity been assigning to all crea- 
tures their respective purposes. No vision can ap- 
proach him, no language describe him, not intel- 
lectual power can comprehend him." 

The above short extracts are from the sacred 
writings of the Hindoos, long before the time of 
Moses, than which nothing more sublime ever em- 
anated from the human mind, nor did ever a more 
exalted conception of God animate the breast of his 
children. These passages taken from the sacred 
writings are to be regarded as expressive of the 
ecumenical belief of the people, the national con- 
ception of God. 

Orpheus of Thrace, the earliest of the Greek 
poets who wrote about twelve Hundred years B. C, 
in speaking of God uses the following language. 
*' There is one unknown Being prior to all beings, 
and exalted abpve all. He is the author of all 
things, even of the ethereal sphere, and of all things 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 257 

Lelow it. He is Life, Counsel, and Ligbt, which 
three names all signify. One Power, the same that 
drew all things visible and invisible out of nothing. 
We will sing that eternal wise and all-perfect Love 
which reduced the chaos into order." 

"The empyrean, the deep Tartarus, the earth, the 
ocean, the immortal gods and goddesses, all that is, 
that has been, and all that will be, was originally 
contained in the fruitful bosom of Jupiter. lie is 
the first and the last, the beginning and the end. 
All thino^s derive their orio-in from him. He is the 
Primeval Father the immortal Virgin, the life, the 
cause the energy of all things. There is One only 
Power, One only Lord, One Universal King." This 
be it remembered is a heathen's conception of 
God. 

The ancient Persians entertained a similar view 
of the divine Being. " He, (Zoroaster) taught the 
existence of One Supreme Essence, invisible and 
incomprehensible, named Zeruane Akerene which 
signifies Unlimited Time, or The Eternal. (Prog, 
of Eeligious Ideas vol. 1, pp. 258, 259). The 
Chinese idea of God varies but little from the 
above. " Chang-ti is described as the Original 
Principle of all things, almighty, omniscient, 
knowing the inmost secrets of the heart, watching 
over the conduct of the universe, and permitting 
nothing to happen contrary to his will, raising up 
and casting down kings, rewarding virtue and 
punishing wickedness, and sending public calami- 



258 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

ties as a warning to nations to repent and forsake 
their sins." (Ibid vol. 1, p. 206). 

The idea of God entertained by the Egyptians is 
strikingly coincident with those of the other nations, 
as will be seen by the following from the same 
author (vol. 1. p. 145). " From the eternal Soul 
were evolved successive emanations of Spiritual 
Intelligences, more or less elevated in character 
and office, according to their nearness or remoteness 
from the Central Source." Not to mention the 
ideas of a supreme Being as expressed by Pytha- 
goras, Solon, Plato, Socrates, Homer, Cicero and 
numerous others of the ancient Heathen, so-called, 
which do not differ from those expressed in the 
above quotations, let us see what was the Jewish 
idea of God. 

Less clear and explicit than the other nations of 
the past, it is difficult to decide whether they had 
any conception of God, that was universal among 
them. " In the beginning God created the heavens 
and the earth." (Gen. 1.1). " These are the genera- 
tions of the heavens and the earth when they were 
created, in the day that the Lord God created the 
earth and the heavens and every plant of the field 
before it was in the earth, and every herb of the 
field before it grew." (Gen. 2. 4, 5). ''And the 
Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, 
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and 
man became a living soul." (Gen. 5. 7). The above 
passages represent God as the creator of material 
nature and author of the soul of man. " In the be- 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 259 

ginning was the Word and the Word was with God 
and the Word was God." (John 1. 1). "All things 
were made by him, and without him was not any 
thing made that was made." (John 1. 3). " And 
the Word was made fiesh and dwelt among us, full 
of grace and truth." (John 1. 14). Comparing the 
last three passages with those from Genesis, it is 
difficult to tell whether God or Christ was believed 
to be the creator of the world, since Moses ascribes 
it to one and John to the other. Isaiah represents 
God as the author of light and darkness, peace and 
evil. (Isaiah 45. 7). Here Isaiah differs from all 
other sacred writers in ascribing evil to God. God 
says to Moses (Exodus 6. 3), "And I appeared 
unto Abraham, unto Isaac and unto Jacob by the 
name of 'God Almighty,' but by my name Jehovah 
was I not known unto them." From this passage 
taken in connection with the one from David, 
(Psalm 139. 7—12), we shall probably get the fullest 
idea of God expressed in the whole Bible. The 
passage reads thus, "Whither shall I go from thy 
spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence ? 
If I ascend up into heaven thou art there ; if I make 
my bed in hell, behold thou art there. If I take 
the wings of the morning and dwell in the utter- 
most parts of the sea, even there thy hand shall 
lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I 
say surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night 
shall be light about me. Yea the darkness hideth 
not from thee ; bul^ the night shineth as the day : 
the darkness and the light are both alike to thee." 



200 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

In these two passages we have God represented 
as pervading all space, even the invisible realms of 
departed spirits both good and bad, and the creator 
of all things in heaven and in earth. Will theolo- 
gians tell us wherein this representation differs 
from those expressed in the sacred writings of other, 
and older nations, except in the fact that the so- 
called heathen nations express themselves in a 
more concise and explicit manner, while in the 
Hebrew writings we are forced to take two passages 
from widely different authors and times to get the 
full idea? 

That remarkable appearance of God to Abraham 
in Genesis 18th is full of uncertainty. God appears 
with two others that are called men by the Bible 
writer, and he (God) does not appear to have been 
a different personage from the other two. He is 
dusty and travel worn as they, washes his feet and 
rests under the tree the same as they, to all appear- 
ance, took breakfast at the usual hour, and, at the 
time of the visit, has as good an appetite as they, 
does not refuse veal and cakes on the occasion, ac- 
knowledges his ignorance of what is passing in the 
cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and frankly tells 
Abraham his intentions in case the requisite num- 
ber of righteous ones are not found therein. If 
this is to be received as equally true with the repre- 
sentations gleaned from Genesis and Psalms, there is 
a plain contradiction in the Bible representation of 
the infinite God. 

If the passage in Exodus 23. 23, is to be taken as 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 261 

correct, then all idea of God's infioitj sinks at once, 
and the Jews had no such sublime and exalted ideas 
of the great Universal Soul as were entertained by 
their heathenish neighbors. The passage from St. 
John, (Rev. 22. 13). " I am Alpha and Omega the be- 
ginning and the end, the first and the last," indicates 
that the belief in the eternity of God was prevalent 
in his (John's) time. 

Among the Hindoos it was believed that Brahm, 
the universal soul, was possessed of three attributes 
called Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. God of the Bible 
is said to consist of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 
Brahma was the firstborn of Brahm. Christ is the 
first born " and only begotten Son of God." The 
Egyptians believed that from the universal soul 
pro3eeded Amun — the first begotten, or first ema- 
nation. The Persians taught that from Zeruane 
Akerene there emanated Ormuzd, who was called 
among other titles " The First Born of the Eternal 
One," "The Creator," "The Sovereign Intelli- 
gence," " The All Seeing," " The Just Judge." The 
Greeks borrowing their ideas of theology from the 
neighboring nations called Amun of the Egyptians 
"Jupiter Ammon," the first bora of Jupiter, the 
Universal soul. 

All these ideas of a Son of God, or God manifest 
in the flesh, "antedate the time of Jesus as the Son 
of God, and even Moses who wrote the first part of 
the scriptures. How could the idea have been an 
original one with the Jews or christians since all 
nations had believed it from time immemorial? 



262 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

Each of these first begotten Sons of the Universal 
Soul, or God, was believed to be the creator of the 
world and all things contained therein. The Son of 
the New Testament, or " the Word" is no exception 
to the general rule. 

The Persians declare that Ormnzd created the 
world in six periods of time. He created first the 
firmament with lights; second, he created water; 
third, earth; fourth, trees ; fifth, animals, and sixth, 
man ; and when all was finished he devoted a seventh 
period to a festival with the good spirits. Here is 
a direct correspondence with the six days of 
creation in Genesis, and the rest on the seventh 
day. 

The Hindoos believed in a multitude of evil spirits 
that were powerful and of enormous dimensions, 
whom they called Giants, and who had a serpent 
for their leader. These spirits were ever about 
mankind inflaming their passions and inciting them 
to evil. On one, occasion they fought desperately 
with Indra and his spirits of light. They would 
have taken his heavenly kingdom and changed the 
whole order of the Universe, had not Brama sent 
Yishnu to conquer them and thwart their plans. 
For this purpose he became twice incarnate in the 
human form, and dwelt among mortals. 

The Persians tell us in the Zend a Yesta, that 
after Ormuzd had created man, he created a good 
spirit to be his or her attendent through life to 
watch over and protect them. Arimanes created 
also a bad spirit to tempt them each, all through 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 263 

lief, Ormnzd was the Kinsr of liorlit, and Arimanes 
was tbe prince of darkness. 

Both were onee good and pure, but Arimanes, be- 
coming jealous of Ormuzd, the first born, was con- 
demned bj the Eternal Oae, to three thousand 
years banishment from the presence of Ormuzd 
and the Eternal One, to a realm of utter darkness 
unpenetrated by a single ray of light. During the 
period of this banishment, Ormuzd created the firm- 
ament, the orbs of heaven and the celestial spirits, 
without the knowledge of Arimanes. Previously 
to the creation of the world, Ormuzd had created 
there classes of beneficent spirits. The first class 
consisted of six, male and female, he being the 
seventh. 

These were called Amshaspands — the Immortal 
Holy Ones. These were ever to surround his 
throne as representatives of benevolence and wisdom, 
to convey to him the prayers of inferior spirits and 
of men, and were, to them, models of purity and 
perfection. 

The next were twenty-eight gentle spirits of 
both sexes, with the resplendant Mithras as their 
leader- They bestowed gifts upon the earth, and 
served as messengers between men and superior 
spirits, and were called Izeds. 

The third much more numerous, were the em- 
bodiment of the conceptions of Ormuzd before he 
created the world, and hence each individual order 
in the creation, man, plants, trees, and animals, had 
one of these spirits as its vivifying principle. 



26-1 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

Every mortal had one of these spirits by him 
through life, to protect him from evil. 

When the period of the banishment of Arimanes 
had expired, and he beheld the beautiful world of 
Ormuzd, he became again jealous, and created 
seven Archdeves to oppose the Amshaspands. He 
then made twenty -eight Deves to act in opposition 
to the Izeds, by spreading all manner of disorder 
and disease, and for a chief he gave them Asch- 
raogh, a serpent walking on two feet. Then he 
created a horde of Genii to oppose the Fervers, so 
that everything had an attendent good and bad 
spirit. 

The Bible presents us with three classes of celes- 
tial beings, Archangels, Angels and Spirits. It 
would be difficult for a reflective mind to read these 
ideas of the Hindoos and Persians, and resist the 
conviction, that, however much the Jewish and 
christian may differ from them in detail, still the 
leading ideas are essentially the same, and until 
there can be proof brought that the Jewish is the 
oldest nation of the three, it must be conceded that 
the claim to inspiration in first laying these things 
before the world, rests with the heathen and not 
with the reputed oracles of God. If given by the 
heathen, says all Christendom, it must be false, for 
God never inspired them. Since the accounts are 
alike substantially among all, and the heathen pub- 
lished them first, can it be possible that the pen of 
the Jew conferred truth upon a heathen lie ? 

In all these systems, one Spirit of darkness is the 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 265 

author of all the temptations that mankind are sub- 
ject to, and is the secret source of all the sin and 
wrong in the world. 

23 



CHAPTER XIY. 

Origin of the Jewish Eeligion and Eitual 

( Continued). 

Jewish, Chinese, Persian, Hindoo and Egyptian 
sacred writings represent the human family as fallen 
from a state of innocence and purity to one of de- 
pravity, degredation and sin, and the Jews, Persians 
and Chinese declare that woman was first in the 
transgression, and that man fell through her influ- 
ence. Thus, Hindoos tell us that " there was an 
age of purity called the Satya Yug, when men 
lived to an immense age and were more than thirty 
feet high. They were too innocent to have need 
of government, and so unselfish that all the goods 
of life were equally distributed," (Progress of 
Eeligious Ideas vol. 1, p. 2). 

Homer speaks of the early Egyptians as the 
*' blameless men" that Jupiter visited annually. In 
Persian sacred writings we are told that Meshia, the 
first women, " poured milk toward the north as a 
libation to the spirits of darkness, and their power 
was greatly increased thereby." " His (Arimanes') 
Deves entered into the bodies of men and produced 
all manner of diseases. They entered into their 
minds and incited them to sensuality, falsehood, 
slander, revenge. Into every department of the 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 267 

world thej introduced discord and death," (Prog. 
Eel. Ideas, vol. 1, pp. 262, 263). The Chinese 
Sacred Writings dating back four hundred years 
before Moses, say, " In the first age of perfect 
purity, all was in harmony, and the passions did 
not occasion the slightest murmur. Man, united to 
sovereign reason within, conformed his actions to 
sovereign justice. Far from all duplicity and false- 
hood, his soul received marvellous felicity from 
heaven and purest delights from earth." The first 
man and woman were called Tai Wang and Pao 
See, of whom it is said, " Tien placed man upon a 
high mountain which Tai Wang rendered fruitless 
by his own fault. He filled earth with thorns and 
briers and said, I am not guilty, for I could not 
do otherwise. Why did he plunge us into so much 
misery ? All was subjected to man at first but 
woman threw us into slavery. The wise husband 
raised up a bulwark of walls, but the woman by an 
ambitious desire for knowledge demolished them. 
Our misery did not come from heaven but from a 
woman. 

She lost the human race. Ah unhappy Pao Seel 
Thou kindled the fire that consumed us, and which 
is every day augmenting. Our misery has lasted 
many ages. The world is lost. Yice overflows all 
things like a mortal poison." 

Hebrew scriptures assert that a serpent beguiled 
the first woman through whom the first man fell 
into transgression, and the whole earth on account 
thereof was cursed to bring forth thorns and thistles, 



268 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

woman to bring forth children in sorrow, and man 
to " eat his bread in the sweat of his brow." 

The Hindoos speak of an age when men lived to 
be very old. The Bible declares that men before 
the Deluge lived to be nearly one thousand years of 
age. 

The Jews believed there was a mountain where 
God delighted to dwell, and it appears from the 
Bible that Jehovah manifested himself specially only 
on hills and mountains. He first appeared to Moses 
on the mountain ; he delivered the law on Mount 
Sinai. The temple of Jerusalem was on a hill-top 
called " My holy Mountain," (Isaiah 6Q. 20) 
(Daniel 9. 15). The Samaritan Jews built their 
temple on Mount Gerizim. 

"They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy 
mountain," (Is. 11. 9). " Even them will I bring to 
my holy mountain," (Is. 46. 7). He appeared also 
to Elijah in the mountain cave. 

The Chinese believe there is a holy mountain 
where a divine man will establish himself to restore 
peace and Righteousness. This mountain, Kou-En- 
Lun, "One of the five volumes called Chan-Hai- 
King thus describes : 'All that could be desired, 
wondrous trees, marvellous fountains and flowery 
shades are found in the hidden garden on that sacred 
hill. This mountain is the inferior palace of the 
Sovereign Lord. The animal Kaiming guards the 
entrance.' * The Lord looks with pleasure upon the 
Holy Mountain. It is the abode of peace. There, 
grow none of the trees employed to make warlike 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 26D 

instruments. It is an Eternal Kingdom. It is the 
work of the Most Hio^h. The Kins^dom of the 
Middle is where the Holy Son of Heaven will come 
to reign. He allows no wicked men to enter there. 
He banishes them into the dark abodes of beasts 
and monsters. The subjects of that kingdom are 
called heavenly people, because they are governed 
by the Holy Son of Heaven who perfects them from 
within and without, and nourishes them by his 
supreme virtue and celestial doctrine, so that they 
cry out with joy. The Son of Heaven is truly the 
Father of his people and Lord of the Universe.' 

'This is the mountain of the Lord; these living 
fountains are the pure waters wherein the subjects 
of the Prince of Peace are to quench their thirst* 
He himself has chosen this mountain. He himself 
has opened these clear streams. It is here all the 
faithful nations must come. It is here that all the 
kings will meet." An ancient commentator savs 
of it * A delicious garden, refreshed with zephyrs, 
and planted with odoriferous trees, was situated in 
the middle of the mountain, which was the avenue 
of heaven. The waters that moistened it flowed 
from a source called the fountain of immortality. 
He who drinks of it never dies. Thence flowed 
four rivers. A Golden Eiver betwixt the south and 
east; a Peaceful Eiver between the south and west; 
a Red River between the north and east ; and the 
River of the Lamb between the north and the west. 
These magnificent floods are the Spiritual Foun- 
tains of the Sovereign Lord by which he heals the 



270 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

nations and fructifies all things." (Prog, of Eelig- 
ious Ideas vol. 1. pp. 208, 209, 210). 

This mountain was the Inferior Palace of the 
Lord. A superior palace and a spiritual one must 
have been believed in that should resemble in the 
spiritual realm this earthly model, and as to its 
locality in the mind of the Chinaman, let the fol- 
lowing passage from the same work, quoted above, 
indicate. " If you double the height of Kou-En- 
Lun it will become the Supreme Heaven, where 
spirits live, the palace of the Great Lord and Sove- 
reign Kuler." Comparing the above extracts de- 
scriptive of the Mountain of the Lord as held by the 
Chinese with the conception of the New Jerusalem 
the Spiritual City of God of course on the Spiritual 
Mountain of the Lord, and but for the difficulty, of 
which we know nothing, or whether there was any, 
of communicating with the Chinese in early times, 
we cannot be left in a moment's doubt as to whence 
the writer of Revelations derived the outlines of his 
ideal New Jerusalem. The mind of the Chinaman, 
accustomed to the rural districts and sacred groves, 
would of course borrow its imagery for the details of 
the "City of the Lord" from these, while the writer 
of the Revelations, while he had the same idea of a 
dwelling place of the Lord, accustomed as he was 
to city life and surroundings, would of necessity en- 
compass his holy retreat by walls and gates, and 
have paved streets and all the peculiarities of an 
earthly city. It cannot be doubted that the Chinese 
furnished the model for John. There are too many 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 271 

points of resemblance and actual identity to resist 
the conclusion. True the works of art in the two 
models differ, but their character, purposes, occu- 
pants, general outline and natural geographical 
features are alike. Was internal evidence wanting 
to prove to the Church Fathers who declared, as 
noticed in a previous chapter, that this closing book 
of the New Testament was a forgery, gotten up for 
bad purposes, this similarity of its New Jerusalem 
to a Chinese model, hundreds of years antedating it, 
would make up any such evidence that might be 
wanting; for really, it (Revelation) is but a poor 
mutilated copy of a plagiarized original. 

Hindoo scirptures state that Vishnu has appeared 
on the earth nine times as a savior, and will make 
one more advent, in the end of the world, when the 
great cycle of Yugs shall be completed which will 
be indicated by the fixed stars arriving at the 
point from which they started at the beginning of 
all things in the month Scorpio. At this time Vish- 
nu will come armed as a warrior riding a winged 
white horse. This will be his last avater. In one 
hand he will carry a large shining ring to show 
that the great circle of Yugs is past, and that the 
end has come, and in the other he will carry a 
cimetar blazing like a comet, to destroy all the im- 
pure that dwell here upon the earth. The sun and 
moon will be darkened at his approach, the earth 
will tremble and the stars will fall from heaven. 
The great serpent Seshanaga will pour forth flames 
from his thousand mouths which will set the uni- 



272 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

verse on fire, consume the spheres and all living 
creatures. The white horse is represented as stand- 
ing with one foot raised. When he stamps it upon 
the earth it is predicted that the dissolution of 
nature wiir take place. Such is the account of the 
prospective dissolution of the material world, after 
which the elements renovated would, bj the power 
of Yishnu, undergo a reorganization and pass 
through the same changes as before. 

Among the Persians the closing of the present 
order of things is not attended with the dissolution 
of material nature, but a purification of the world 
both morally and physically by judging men accord- 
ing to their several characters. 

" At the appointed time the Tzed Serosch will 
summon the Holy One to appear, whose mission it 
is to judge the wicked and the good, and restore 
the world to its primeval beauty. He will bring all 
the world to the worship of Zoroaster, and establish 
universal peace and happiness. At his command 
bodies will rise from their graves. 

Souls will know them and will say, * That is my 
father brother, sister, or wife.' The wicked will 
say to the good : ' Wherefore, when I was in the 
world, did you not teach me to act righteously? 0, 
ye pure ones, it is because you have not instructed 
me that I am excluded from the asssembly of the 
blest.' 

"Each one will be judged according to his works. 
The good father may have a wicked daughter, and 
of two sisters, one may be pure, and the other ira- 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 273 

pure. The good will weep over tbe evil and tlie 
evil will weep over themselves. A star with a tail, 
in the course of its revolutions will strike the earth, 
and set it on fire. Tbe fierce heat will make metals 
run down from high mountains and flow over the 
earth like rivers. All men must pass through them. 
To the good they will be like baths of warm milk ; 
to the wicked thej will be like torrents of lava 
But they will be purified through fire and come 
forth excellent and happy. Arimanes and his Imps 
will be driven by good Spirits through the burning 
torrents of melted metal that they may become puri- 
fied also. Even they will at last feel the overpowering 
influence of goodness, and will prostrate themselves 
before Ormuzd who will accept their repentence 
and forgive them freely. These redeemed spirits 
will join mankind in a universal chorus of praise 
to the Eternal Source of light and blessing. Fathers 
and sons, sisters and friends, will unite to aid each 
other in good works. They will cast no shadows, 
all will speak one language, and live together in 
one harmonious society. The level and fruitful 
earth will be clothed in renovated beauty, and in- 
nocence and joy will everywhere prevail. After 
that Ormuzd will repose for a while." (Pro. Eeli. 
Ideas, vol. 1. p. 264—265). 

Combine the foregoing from the Hindoos and 
Persians, and compare them with the end of the 
world, the dissolution ofmaterial nature, and its ulti- 
mate renovation, the raising of the dead, the general 
judgment, the salvation of the just and the punish- 



274 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

ment of the wicked, all at the cominsr of the Sod of 
Man, or Christ's second and last appearance, and no 
real difference appears, except that most to he le- 
gretted omission in the palpable plagiarism, the 
purification of the wicked both human and satanic, 
and their final restoration to holiness and happi- 
ness. It is claimed that the Bible system of reli- 
gion and salvation is more excellent than all other 
systems. The point of omission referred to, the 
leaving of wicked men and devils in the devouring 
flames, being the only difference perceptible be- 
tween them must be the element of its superiority, 
which, to the truly benevolent and philanthropic 
soul would constitute its greatest inferiority. 
Among the ancient nations so frequently referred 
to in these pages, the entire salvation of the world 
was achieved by the son of the Universal Soul in his 
sufferings during some one or more of his avatars. 
The hopes of the Christian world are in the suffer- 
ings and death of Christ. Each of the old theolo- 
gies makes the Son of God the judge of the dead. It 
is so stated in the Bible. The Hindoos, Egyp- 
tians, Chinese and Persians all speak of a tree 
called the " tree of life," the fruit of which conferred 
immortality on whoever ate it. Thus Osiris in 
Egypt is said to have "Ordered the names of some 
souls to be written on the Tree of Life, the fruit of 
which made those who ate it become gods." Hin- 
doo scriptures say that spirits after several attempts 
to gain immortality, had recourse to the fruit of a 
tree by which the end was attained. Hebrew 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 275 

scriptures represent that a " tree of life" stood in 
Eden, and John in the Revelations says the good 
shall have a right to the " Tree of Life." The 
Greeks had an ancient tradition concerning a tree 
which grew in the garden of Paradise, and bore the 
golden Apples of Immortalitj. The Bible tells of 
a deluge that swept away all the inhabitants of the 
old world while Noah his wife, his three sons and 
their wives, with twos and sevens of the animal 
creation were preserved in an ark, prepared under 
divine direction, for that purpose. It would appear 
that the physical elements underwent a change by 
this deluge, and the old conditions were not restored 
after that event, and the constitution of man under- 
went a change, in consequence of which, his mor- 
tal life was abridged several hundred years. 
Hindoos tell of a great flood that swept off all the in- 
habitants of the earth, and the memorials of the 
first age of the world, and that human life was 
afterwards very much shortened. MenuSatyvarata 
is a conspicuous character in the Hindoo theology. 
From the sacred writings we take the following as 
quoted by Mrs. L. M. Child. The Lord of the 
Universe, loving this holy man and intending to 
preserve him from the sea of destruction caused by 
the wickedness of the age, thus addressed him. 
" thou tamer of enemies, in seven days from this 
time, the three worlds will be plunged in an ocean 
of death. But in the midst of the destroying waves 
a large vessel, sent by me.for thy use shall stand 
before thee. 



276 BIBLE m THE BALANCE. 

Then shalt thou take all medicinal herbs, all 
varieties of seeds, and accompanied by seven saints 
with your respective wives, encircled by pairs of 
all bruit aminals, thou shalt enter the capacious 
ship, and continue in it, on an immense ocean secure 
from tbe flood and without light except from the 
radiance of thy holy companions." 

" The ancient temples of Hindoostan contain rep- 
resentations of Vishnu sustaining the earth while 
overwhelmed by the waters of the Deluge and con- 
vulsed by Demons. A rainbow is seen on the 
surface of the subsiding waters," (Prog. Eeli. Ideas 
vol. 1. p. 55), 

The following from the same author is a transla- 
tion from the Padma Pourana. 

"To Menu Satyvarata, that sovereign of the 
whole earth were born three sons. The eldest was 
Sherma, then Charma, then Jyapeti. They were all 
men of good morals, excellent in virtuous deeds, 
skilled in the use of weapons, either to strike with 
or be thrown, brave men, eager for victory in bat- 
tle. But Satyvarata, being continually delighted 
with devout meditation, and seeing his sons fit for 
dominion, laid upon them the burden of govern- 
ment, whilst he remained honoring and satisfying 
the gods and priests and kine. One day, by the act 
of destiny, the king, having drank mead, became 
senseless and lay asleep naked. Thus he was seen 
by Charma and by him were his two brothers 
called, to whom he said : What now has befallen ? 
In what state is this our sire? By those two was 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 277 

he hidden with clothes and called to his senses 
again and again. Having recoverd his intellect, 
and perfectly knowing what had passed, he cursed 
Charma saying : ' Thou shalt be a servant of ser- 
vants; and since thou wast a laughter in their pres- 
ence, from laughter thou shalt acquire a name. 
Then he gave to Sherraa the wide domain on the 
south of the Snowy Mountains; and to Jyapeti he 
gave all on the north of the Snowy Mountains. 
But he himself by the power of religious contem- 
plation attained supreme bliss." 

If in the foregoing extracts, in place of Menu 
Satyvarata, we read Noah, and in place of Sherma, 
Charma and Jyapeti we read Ham, Shem and 
Japheth, leaving out the seven saints, and allow the 
light of the ark to be admitted through a single 
window in the top, and few theologians indeed 
would be found who could object to the account as 
being a mutilation in any essential point or points 
of the 6th, 7th and 8th chapters of Genesis. 

Numerous other minor points of similarity and 
absolute identity could be shown, but these must 
suffice for the present chapter. 

That the Hindoos were a very ancient nation? 
there needs to be furnished scarcely any evidence 
in this work to the general reader. The fact is too 
well known in this age of historic literature and 
research. They claim an immense antiquity, and 
the mere fact that the Sanscrit language in which 
their scriptures were written has entirely faded 
from memory, history and tradition, as to the time 



278 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

it was used as a vernacular is evidence of tne just- 
ness of the claim. However skeptical we may be 
as to their high antiquity, they have no doubts 
upon the subject of their being the oldest nation of 
men, and no other nation has ever dared to com- 
pete with them for this historic honor. Shrouded 
in uncertainty as is all the early history of those 
ancient nations, it is enough to know that Chaldea, 
Persia and Egypt claim not so high an antiquity as 
they ascribe to the Hindoos. Zoroaster the great 
founder of the Persian religion lived, according to 
the best ancient authority, not far from six thou- 
sand years before our era. Aristotle, Pliny, Hesiod 
ascribe to him this date, though others bring him 
down to within about five hundred years of our own 
period. This is a sectarian necessity ; for admititing 
the former to have been the period of his life, and 
the claim to the priority of the Jewish scriptures 
and system of theology and religion is surrendered 
at once ; hence to avert a calamity so inevitable and 
fatal, and vindicate the claim to originality set up 
for the Bible, it has been found convenient to bring 
him down to this date, or to add to a second Zoro- 
aster, about the time of the Jewish King Ezra. 
But historicaLevidence of a second Persian by this 
name who was the author of the Persian Bible 
called the Zend-a- Vesta, is not so apparent as the 
theological necessity of such a personage at that 
time. The writer has failed to find any such evi- 
dence, which doubtless would never have been 
sought after, and a second Zoroaster never been 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 279 

dreamed of had not t"he date of the real one inter- 
fered with the supposed claims of the Bible to the 
highest antiquity, and the only revelation from 
God. True, Plutarch is of the opinion he flourished 
only five hundred years before the Christian Era, 
but it is doubtful whether any other than a theologi- 
cal, was the basis of his opinion and that of others 
who take the same ground. It is difficult for 
man to let go his old ideas of theology, and admit 
how baseless have been the claims he has ever 
urged in its favor, and will fly to almost any rea- 
sonable expedient that bears the semblance of truth 
or probability, that will quiet his reason, and leave 
him in the peaceable possession of his religion and 
his theologv. Such doubtless is the case with the 
claim that Zoroaster lived B. C. 500, or that there 
was, at that date, a second sage by that name, who 
was Persia's great reformer. 

Of one fact there can be no question whatever, 
that Egj^ptian theology is older than the Jewish. 
At the time of the advent of Jacob and his family 
into Egypt their theology, religion and ritual were 
already fully established, and Egypt's powerful 
priesthood held the reins of government through her 
proud monarch, and swayed at will the destinies of 
the people. Her towering and massive pyramids 
with thier wells for procuring the " sacred water,'* 
and subterranean passages to the Nile, the " holy 
river," built in an age of the empire buried beneath 
the drift of so many centuries, that all historic and 
traditionary trace thereof had long since been ob- 



280 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

literated, and built too for religious purposes, attest 
but too plainly that compared with this, the Jewish, 
which originated with Moses, would be a theology of 
but yesterday. In those ancient lapidary structures 
were doubtless performed the sublime services of 
Osiris by the ancient son worshipers, which services 
probably were identical with the mystic rights of 
ancient Free Masonry, and the pyramids themselves 
but exhibitions of the power and perfection of art 
to which the " craft" had attained in those early 
days. The truncated pyramids at the entrance of 
the ancient temples both in India and Egypt are cer- 
tainly masonic in their origin. This is known to 
every intelligent Free Mason, and it is to be regretted 
that a full and unbroken chain of history has not 
been preserved by the " Order." Could now this 
lost history be restored, doubtless the whole mys- 
tery of the pyramids would stand revealed and 
Memnon would utter again his musical note in salu- 
tation of so glorious a historic " sunrise." But 
ancient Free Masonry is lost to history, and these 
monuments alone stand in their sublime grandeur 
in the midst of the desert sands as silent sentinels 
around the portals of her ancient sepulchre. 

The Jews were over four hundred years dwellers 
in the land of Egypt, not at an early day but in the 
height of her glory and wisdom, and so renowned 
were the Egyptians for their literature that the 
highest compliment that could be paid to Moses, 
was to declare him skilled in all the learning and 
wisdom of the Egyptians. Greek philosophers 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 



281 



went to Egypt to consult the priests, and a Greek or 
Eoman education was not complete till the student 
had made a journey to Egypt and consulted her 
priests, and wise men. 



CHAPTER XV. 

Origin of the Jewish Religion and Ritual. 
( Concluded), 

Moses, the great law-giver of the Jews and the 
founder of the Jewish nation, was born in Egypt 
1571 B. C, and led the Hebrews out of that country 
1491 B. C. With the learning he received, edu- 
cated as the son of the kings daughter, it is not 
supposable he could have been ignorant of the 
relipfion and sacred writinsrs of the nation. We 
have from the Bible positive evidence that he was 
not. 

At the age of forty, he went into the land of 
Midian where he married and lived forty years with 
his father-in-law who was a priest in the place ; a 
local priest of course, but of the Eyptian religion. 
Now, unless Jethro affords us an exception to the 
proselyting proclivities of all priests in times ancient 
and modern, Moses could not have been a member 
of his household that length of time without being 
made acquainted with the claims and ritual of the 
religion of the parent and of course the whole family. 
This is on the supposition of his being a Jew, and 
hence not adopting the religion of his marriage 
relatives. The claim to his Hebrew birth we may 
see occasion to doubt. Monetho, an Egyptian his- 
torian, who lived about three hundred vears before 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 283 

the christian era, left a history and chronology of 
Egypt, of which fragmentary portions only remain. 
The latter, the chronology, appears in another 
chapter. Josephus uses a lengthy extract from the 
history, but doubts its correctness. This he could 
not help, being a Jew, for to admit its correctness, 
would be to admit that there was no certainty that 
all the Jews were descendents of Abraham, and 
further that the whole tribe of priests were not Jews 
but of Egyptian origin. Hence it is a matter of no 
surprise that Josephus should use Manetho to prove 
the Abrahamic origin of the Hebrew nation, and a,t 
the same time, to avert the blow that must inevitably 
fall upon them of having a foreign priesthood, must 
not admit that Moses was an Egyptian priest, 
educated at Helicpolis, as Manetho asserts. Still it 
cannot be urged as an objection to Manetho's state- 
ment that it lacks plausibility ; but there is good 
reason why a Jew should wish to doubt it if possi- 
ble, because, if admitted, the Abrahamic origin of 
the priesthood is denied. After stating that the 
Egyptians rose against the sheperd kings who had 
subjugated them, and expelled them from the 
country, but in the expulsion, allowing them to 
depart with all their efiects and families, in number 
not less than two hundred and forty thousand, and 
that they bent their way through the desert towards 
Syria, but fearing the Assyrians who had dominion 
over Asia, they built a city in that country which 
is now called Judea, sufficient in size to contain this 
multitude of men, and named it Jerusalem, he thus 



234: BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

proceeds, as quoted by Joseph us: ''The king 
Amenophis was desirous of beholding the gods, as 
Orus, one of his predecessors in the kingdom had 
seen them; and he communicated his desire to a 
priest who seemed to partake of the divine nature, 
both in his wisdom and knowledge of futurity. He 
told the king it was in his power to behold the gods, 
if he would cleanse the whole country of lepers and 
other unclean persons that abounded in it. Well 
pleased with this information the king gathered to- 
gether out of Egypt all that labored under any 
defect in body, to the amount of eighty thousand, 
and sent them to the quarries which are situated on 
the east side of the Kile, that they might work in 
them, and be separated from the rest of the 
Egyptians. Among them were some learned priests 
who were affected with leprosy. The prophet, 
fearing the vengeance of the gods would fall on both 
himself and the king if it should appear that 
violence had been offered to these priests, added 
also in a prophetic spirit, that certain people would 
come to the assistence of these unclean persons, and 
would subdue Egypt, and hold it in possession 
thirteen years. He dared not communicate these 
tidings to the king, but left in writing what would 
come to pass, and then destroyed himself at which 
the king was greatly distressed. When those sent 
to work in the quarries had continued some time 
in that miserable state, the king was petitioned to 
set apart for their habitation and protection the city 
of Avaris, which had been left vacant by the 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 285 

shepherds; and he granted their desire. Bat when 
they had taken possession of the city and found it 
well adapted for a revolt, they appointed for them- 
selves a ruler from among the priests of Heliopolis, 
one whose name was Osarsiph, and bound them- 
selves by an oath that they would be obedient to 
him. Osarsiph, in the first place enacted a law that 
they should neither worship the gods nor abstain 
from those sacred animals which the Egyptians 
held in veneration, but sacrifice and slay any of 
them ; and that they should connect themselves with 
none but such as were of their own confederacy. 

When he had made such laws as these, and many 
others of a tendency directly opposite to the cus- 
toms of the Egyptians, he gave orders that they 
should employ the multitude of hands in rebuilding 
the walls of the city, and hold themselves in readi- 
ness for war with Amenophis the king. He then 
took into his counsels some others of the priests 
and unclean persons, and sent embassadors to Jeru- 
salem to those shepherds who had been expelled by 
King Tethmosis. He informed them of the posi- 
tion of affairs, and requested them to come up 
unanimously to his assistance in this war with 
Egypt. He promised to provide a plentiful main- 
tenance for their host, and reinstate them in their 
ancient city, Avaris, assuring them he could easily 
reduce the country and bring it under their domin- 
ion. The shepherds received this message with 
great joy and quickly mustered to the number of 
two hundred thousand men and came to Avaris. 



28G BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

When those people from Jerusalem had come down 
with the unclean Egyptians, they treated the in- 
habitants with such barbarity, that those who wit- 
nessed their impieties, believed their joint sway 
more execrable than that which the shepherds had 
formerly exercised alone. For they not only set 
fire to the cities and villages, but committed every 
kind of sacrilege, destroyed the images of the gods, 
and roasted and fed upon those sacred animals 
that were worshipped ; and having compelled the 
priests and prophets to kill and sacrifice them, they 
cast them naked out of the country. It is said 
that the priest who ordained their polity and laws 
was by birth of Heliopolis, and his name Osarsiph, 
from Osiris, the god of Heliopolis ; but when he 
went over to these people his name was changed 
and he was called Moses. After this, Amenophis 
and Eampses, his son, came with a great force, and, 
encountering the Shepherds and the unclean people, 
they defeated them, and slew multitudes and pur- 
sued them to the bounds of Syria." 

No one who reads the above extract from Manetho, 
but will feel that we have here the most probable ac- 
count of the exodus of the Jews from Egypt, and the 
true nativity and history of Moses. That he was 
thoroughly and practically educated in the religious 
rites of the Egyptians and was really an Egyptian 
in the religious sense, will become perfectly appa- 
rent on a comparison of the rites of the Jews with 
those of the former nation, in which comparison, so 
perfect will be found the resemblance between the 



BIBLE IN" THE BALANCE. 287 

two, that all doubts as to Moses having copied his 
ritual after the Egvptian model, will be removed 
entirely. This comparison is made in so concise 
and perfect a form by Mrs. L. M. Child, in her Pro- 
gress of Religious Ideas, that it will be copied en- 
tire as the best that possibly could be made. 

"But though one individual object of worship 
was presented, instead of a multitude of deities, the 
ritual prescribed by Moses bears a very strong re- 
semblance to models with which his mind had been 
long familiar. When the people inquired the 
name of the great God who had chosen them, he 
told them it was Jehovah ; a word that contains the 
present past and future tenses of the Hebrew verb 
to be ; and therefore signifies I am, was, and will 
be. On a very ancient temple in Egypt has been 
found the inscription, ' I am whatever is, was, and 
will be.' Hebrews had such a reverence for the 
name of Jehovah, that it was never uttered except 
by the High Priest; and when the people heard it 
they all fell prostrate to the ground. They never 
wrote it, but expressed it in their sacred books by a 
short mark which they pronounced Adoni, meaning 
the Lord. The names of Egyptian deities were 
never written in the popular language of the 
country ; they were always expressed by symbols ; 
and even in their sacred language the names of 
some divinities were always written in one way 
and pronounced in another. Hindoos had similar 
scruples concerning the name of Brahm. Judges 
in Egypt, who were always priests, wore a breast- 



288 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

plate ornamented with jewels containing the images 
of two deities, Thme, goddess of Truth or Justice, 
and Ea god of the Sun, signifying Light and 
Manifestation. The Urei, or Asps were emblems 
of royalty in Egypt, and often affixed in hiero- 
glyphics to the disc of the sun because he was the 
king of the planets. Moses ordained that Hebrew 
High Priests should wear a breast-plate set with 
precious stones, and that the Urim and Thummim 
should be placed therein. There has been much 
controversy among commentators concerning the 
Urim and Thummim. The sun in Hebrew is 
Aur, plural Aurim. Truth is Thme, plural Thmim. 
When learned Jews translated their Sacred Scrip- 
tures into Greek, they translated Urim and Thum- 
mim into Greek words signifying Manifestation 
and Truth. Philo, a learned Jew, informs us that 
the breastplate of the High Priest contained " images 
of the two Virtues or Powers." 

" The portable temple, which Moses made in the 
form of a tent, and called the tabernacle, was con- 
structed on the same principles as Egyptian tem- 
ples. It faced the east, it had a tank of water for 
ablutions ; it had an outer enclosure, another 
within called the sanctuary, or holy, and another 
inmost, called Sanctum Sanctorum or holy of 
holies; veiled from the congregation by a gorgeous 
curtain of blue, purple and scarlet." For a perfect 
model of Egyptian temples, see Frontispiece in G. J. 
"Wilkinsons work, " Travels in Africa." 

**In the inmost sanctuary of Egyptian temples 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 289 

was a chest or shrine, surmounted by a sacred 
image overshadowed by creatures with wings. 

In the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Tabernacle was 
a chest, or ark, plated with gold and overshadowed 
by the wings of Cherubim, touching each other. 
There has been much discussion concerning these 
cherubim. Josephus says they were ' flying ani- 
mals like to none which were seen by men, but such 
as Moses saw figured in the throne of God.' Eze- 
kiel alluding to these emblems discribes the same 
face in one place as the face of an ox and in another 
as the face of a churub. The word cherub in 
Hebrew means to plough. 

" It is now the general opinion of scholars that the 
Hebrew cherubim were creatures resembling the 
winged bulls so common as sacred emblems in 
Chaldea and Egvpt. 

"The Hebrew ark had rings through which polls 
were slipped that it might be carried on the shoulders 
of priests. In many of the religious processions 
sculptured in ancient Egyptian temples priests are 
represented as carrying their sacred shrine in the 
same manner. Kings and priests, in Egypt were 
anointed with sacred oil. Moses prepared fragrant 
oil, consecrated it and laid it up in the tabernacle to 
anoint the Hebrew priests. In both countries the 
priests wore pure white and performed the same 
ablutions. In both countries, the government was 
a theocracy ; everything being decided by oracles 
delivered to priests in the temple. 
25 



290 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

" Egyptians welcomed the new moouwitli religious 
ceremonies; so did the Hebrews. They had harvest 
festivals during which thej offered the first sheaves 
of their grain to Isis ; Hebrews did the same in the 
service of Jehovah. Sculptures in Egypt made 
long before the time of Moses represent priests oifer- 
ing cakes, meal, wine, turtledoves and young pig- 
eons to their gods; and precisely these oblations to 
Jehovah are prescribed in the Hebrew Law. Hin- 
doos and Egyptians had an idea that the fumes of 
animal sacrifices were acceptable to the deities, and 
in some sort necessary to them. In the laws of 
Moses, burnt offerrings of animals are continually 
called a ' sweet savor unto the Lord.' Hindoos and 
Egyptians believed fragrance was peculiarly agree- 
able to divine beings; and Hebrews were command- 
ed to wave incense before the Lord. 

" Egyptian priests, with solemn ceremonies, laid 
the sins of the nation on the head of a bullock, sac- 
rificed the victim, and removed far from them the 
head, on which the sins were supposed to rest. 
Moses ordajned that the sins of the priesthood should 
be laid on the head of a bullock, to be afterwards 
sacrificed ; and the sins of the people to be laid on 
the head of a goat which was afterwards thrown 
over a precipice that he might carry the sins off 
with him. Both Hindoos and Egyptians attached 
peculiar sacredness to cows. The ashes of cow-dang 
prepared with solemn ceremonies is prescribed in 
the Yedas to be mixed with water, as an appropri- 
ate purification to keep away the spirits of death. 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 291 

Moses commanded the Children of Israel to burn a 
red heifer, 'skin, flesh, blood, and dung.' The ashes 
thus obtained was gathered up and kept for pur- 
poses of purification. The priest mixed it with 
water and sprinkled it with a bunch of hyssop upon 
whoever had touched a human bone, or a grave, or 
dead body, or had entered a tent where a corpse 
was lying. 

" From time immemorial it has been the custom 
for travelling parties in Hindostan to take with 
them a pole with the image of a serpent wreathed 
round it. Serpents of brass, and serpents of silver 
abounded in Egyptian temples and were mysterious- 
ly connected with their ideas of the healing art. 
From them Greeks learned toattach similar medici- 
nal importance to the serpent, and the emblem of their 
-^sculapius, god of medicine, w^as a serpent wreathed 
round a pole. Hebrew Sacred Books tell us that 
Moses made a serpent of brass and put it upon a 
pole; ' and it came to pass that if a serpent had bit- 
ten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass he 
lived.' 

" Egyptians had a great obhorreuce to swine, and 
considered the flesh unclean above all other food- 
Priests purified themselves with religious ceremon- 
ies if they touched the beast, even accidentally ; for 
it was the common belief that evil spirits were 
prone to take up their abode in them. Moses said 
to the children of Israel : ' The flesh of swine shall 
ye not eat, and their carcass shall ye not touch ; 
they are unclean to you.' If they happened to 



292 - BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

toucli one, tliej went through ceremonies of purifi- 
cation before thej ventured to approach any sacred 
place. 

" Why Moses was not circumcised, beino' a de- 
scendent of Abraham, and adopted by Egyptians in 
infancy, is not explained ; but the fact is implied 
by his saying to the Lord : ' Behold I am of uncir- 
cumcisedlips; how then shall Pharaoh hearken unto 
me?' 

" The question plainly indicates that the right was 
deemed of importance by the Egyptians. While 
Moses dwelt with Jethro, priest of Midian, he seems 
to have neglected the circumcision of his son. But 
when he was about to return to Egypt, the right 
was performed, though Zipporah, his wife, seems 
t.0 have been opposed to the custom. 

" Hindods and Egyptians being ignorant of the 
fact that rain is caused by continual exhalationslfroni 
the earth and ocean, supposed that there was a 
great reservoir of water above the sky. That 
Hebrews entertained the same idea, is shown by 
their statement that when Jehovah created the 
world, ' he divided the waters which were under the 
firmament from the waters which were above the 
firmament." 

"If the above parallelism of ideas, doctrines and 
ritual are insuficient to convince the thinking mind 
that the Jewish religion, from first to last, was bor- 
rowed from older nations, and that the ritual was 
Egyptian and only Egyptian, further casting the 
pearls of truth would be entirely useless, and we 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 293 

might better wait with a forlorn hope the time when 
stones shall speak. The identity is complete. It 
matters not whether Moses was a Hebrew or not, 
so far as the argument is concerned. As a priest 
and theocrat, he gives the Children of Israel a theo- 
logical system and a religious code and ritual, and 
with the bare exception of his directing the mind to 
one divinity instead of thirty thousand, neither con- 
tains the least important element of originality. 

It is even doubtful whether the Jehovah that 
Moses taught was understood by him to be any 
other than a tutelary deity superior to any other 
god that was worshiped, in wisdom and power. 
That it was not the Universal soul is most certain, 
if a correct representation has been made of him in 
the Bible. That book represents him as destitute of 
every infinite power and faculty, or, perhaps, it 
were better to say that every power and faculty 
ascribed to him is finite, and only sucb as pertain 
to humanity. He is represented as finite in knowl- 
edge. "I will go down now and see whether they 
have done altogether according to the cry of it 
which is come unto me, and if not I will know.'* 
(Gen. 18. 21). 

He is represented as finite in power, as frequently 
repenting, surprised by circumstances, and having 
recourse to miracles to meet the necessities of the 
case, possessed of anger, jealousy, malice, revenge, 
and all the vices as well as weaknesses of human 
beings, a hater of all nations except the Jews, mur- 
derous and unjust in the very extreme, yet easily 



294 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

controlled by Moses, tbough he begs to be left alone 
in his purposes of veogeance. Knowing full well 
his own weakness and the power of Moses over him, 
he unites in his varied character all the peculiar 
qualities of the several gods of the other nations, 
and rules in all parts of the natural world and hu- 
man affairs, as the various gods of the other nations 
had in their particular departments. Thus he re- 
presents not so much the infinite God, with a nature 
elevated far above all finite powers and conceptions, 
as an agglomeration of all the powers and faculties 
of finite divinities, and a representation of all their 
various beings. But all these divinities were the 
souls of departed heroes and heroines, and other 
great men and women: as Dr. Campbell justly ob- 
serves, "From the days of Titan and Saturn the 
poetic progeny of Coeclus and Terra down to 
^sculapius Protius and Minos, all their gods were 
the departed spirits of human beings and were so 
regarded by the most erudite of the Pagans them- 
selves." Bagster makes a declaration of the same 
thins:. 

Their tutelary deities were selected from among 
these according to the characters they bore here, 
and usually the greatest warriors here were the 
greatest gods by deification. This accounts for all 
the great gods of the ancients being so powerful in 
battle. Believing also that the spirits of men in- 
crease in power as they increase in knowledge and 
wisdom, superhuman exploits were ascribed to them 
by their worshippers. Keeping in view this an- 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 295 

tTiropological idea in all tbe ancient theologies, the 
same anthropological character must be looked for 
in the Jehovah of the Jews, and everywhere it is 
glaringly apparent, and though this Jehovah is 
everywhere represented as more powerful than any 
other of the gods, this at last is the only real differ- 
ence that appears between them. 

From these known facts it is doubtful whether 
Moses, when he declared that the name of their god 
was "Jehovah," meant to represent the Universal 
Soul to the exclusion of all subordinate and tutelary 
deities, or whether he meant simply a tutelary 
deity only, never intending to inculcate the idea of 
an all-p>ervading spirit, nor admit the worship of in- 
ferior divinities. Even admitting that he intended 
Jehovah to represent the Universal Soul, still he 
appears to have been only a human spirit after all, 
as none but human characteristics are ascribed to 
him, and, in this respect, there is apparent 
another, and an almost unlooked identity of idea 
between the Jews and the other nations of the past. 
A fact sustaining the above proposition, is to be 
found in the prohibition of all correspondence with 
the dead. To have a familiar spirit, was to have 
responses from the dead. To receive responses 
from the dead, was followed by deifying the dead. 
To deify the dead, would have resulted in just such 
a system of polytheism as the Egyptians had, which, 
in the infancy of the nation, would have resulted in 
the greatest disaster. While the religious is the 
strongest element in man's nature, a focalization of 



296 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

the mind religiously, and through this politically, 
was of the utmost importance in the time of Moses- 
This could be done only by directing the mind to 
the worship of one God, and to accomplish this all 
communication with departed spirits must be pro- 
hibited. Thus it becomes apparent that the Jews 
believed, with all other nations, that the dead not 
only lived, but were still interested in the affairs 
of this life, and might at the request of the people, 
or by their own voluntary act assume the responsi- 
bilities of tutelary deities. Saul attests this by his 
evoking the spirit of Samuel in his extremity. The 
law of prohibition is positive evidence also of the 
fact, for the law was not against pretending to do 
what they could not and did not, but for actually 
doing what, under the circumstances, they ought 
■p ot. 



CHAPTEE XYI. 

New Testament Doctkines and Miracles. 

Of the Kew Testament, much might, but little 
need be said. That in doctrines and morals it is 
original, there is not the least evidence, but, on the 
contrary, there is every reason to believe, that, like 
the Old, it is of foreign extraction, and may claim 
quite as high an antiquity for many of its leading 
points of doctrine as the latter, and more closely a 
compilation from previously existing documents so 
far as the historical portions are concerned. The 
religion of the ISTew Testament is called the " Chris- 
tian religion," and is generally supposed to have 
been promulgated by Jesus of Nazareth for the first 
time about eighteen centuries ago. Its leading 
doctrines are salvation through a crucified saviour, 
achieved by faith in him, and prayer to God for 
forgiveness of sins through his merits and atone- 
ment. 

That it was not new at that time, Eusebius and 
others abundantly prove. " These matters have 
been thus necessarily premised before our history, 
that no one may suppose that our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ was merely a new comer, on account 
of the date at which he appeared among men in the 
flesh. And now, that no one may suppose his doc- 
trine new or strange, as if springing from one of 



298 BIBLE IN" THE BALANCE. 

recent origin, and in no respect differing from the 
rest of men, let us also briefly examine this point." 
(Buse. Eccel. Hist. B. 1, c. 4. p. 25). The expres- 
sion, '' the rest of men," in the foregoing passage, 
unless a very awkward one, and well calculated to 
lead astray, cannot in its signification be confined 
to the Jewish, though these are the only people 
among whom the writer represents it as having 
specifically existed. Justin Martyr is much more 
broad in his enunciation of the same fact. In his 
" Dialogue with Trypho," written a little prior to 
the middle of the second century, we find him 
using the following remarkable language: " There 
exists not a people, whether Greeks or barbarians, 
or any other race of men, by whatever appellation. 
or manners they may be distinguished, however 
ignorant of arts or agriculture, whether they dwell 
under tents or wander about in covered wagons, 
among whom prayers are not offered up in the 
name of a crucified Jesu^, to the Father and Creator 
of all things." (Quoted by Taylor in his Diegesis 
pp. 314, 315). Did the statement made in a pre- 
vious chapter, that the praying to the Universal 
Soul through Krishna, Baddha, Ormuzd and others, 
was only imitated by the Christians in their prayers 
to God through Jesus Christ, need confirmation, the 
above assertion of Justin Martyr, the associate of 
the beloved John, is confirmation sufS.cient. But 
Justin does not stop here ; he even goes so far as to 
make it appear that the christian "Son of God," 
born of a virgin, crucified, dead and risen, a great 



BIBLE IN" THE BALANCE. 299 

healer etc., was only a repetition of what had been 
claimed a long time before among the Greeks for 
their sons of Jove, their Logos, their ^sculapius 
and others, revered as Grods and objects of worship 
among them. (Justin Martyr's Apology ad- 
dressed to the Greek and Roman emperors in 141, 
cited by Taylor in his Diegesis pp. 315—317). 

The wonder at the reading of this " Apology" 
culminates in a blush of astonishment at hearing 
men at this late day, with these facts before them, 
put forth these doctrines as original, and Jesus, of 
the New Testament, as the original and only " God 
in the flesh." A single passage from the " Apology" 
should be given here. It is this. "For in saying 
that all things were made in this beautiful order by 
God, what do we seem to say more than Plato? 
When we teach a general conflagration, what do we 
teach more than the Stoics? By opposing the wor- 
ship of the works of men's hands, we concur with 
Menander the comedian, and by declaring the Logos 
the first begotten of God, our Master Jesus Christ, 
to be born of a Virgin without any human mixture? 
and to be crucified and dead, and to have risen 
again and ascended into heaven, we say no more 
in this, than what you say of those whom you style 
the Sons of Jove." 

Here the reader has the admission in full, at once 
and forever fatal to the christian claim, and a full 
and entire surrender of the orthodox citadel. Had 
Justin been writing to Hindoos, Persians, Egyp- 
tians or Chinese, he might have used the same Ian- 



300 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

guage, with the bare change of names, as has already 
been made to appear. But Justin Martyr is not 
alone in his admissions. Paul declares himself to 
have been " made a minister of the gospel which 
had been preached to every creature under heaven." 
(Col. 1. 23); also to Timothy he writes of preaching 
a God which J had been believed on in the worlds (1. 
Timothy 8. 16). Of course, then, the doctrine was 
not new in Paul's time. Again, Justin Martyr in 
his Apology as quoted by Max MuUer in his "Chips 
from a German Workshop" page 28, preface, writes : 
*' One article of our faith then is, that Christ is the 
first begotten of God, and we have already proved 
him to be the very Logos, (or universal reason) of 
which mankind are all partakers, and, therefore, 
those who live according to the Logos are Christians 
notwithstanding they may pass with you for Athe- 
ists ; Such among the Greeks were Sokrates and 
Heraklitus and the like, and such among the Bar- 
barians were Abraham and Ananias, and Azarias, 
and Misael and Elias and many others whose ac- 
tions, nay whose very names, I know, would be 
tedious to relate, and therefore shall pass them over. 
So, on the other hand, those who have lived in 
former times in defiance of the Logos or Reason, 
were evil, and enemies to Christ and murderers, of 
such as lived according to the Logos ; but they who 
have made or mahe the Logos or Reason the rule of 
their actions^ are Christians^ and men without fear 
and trembling." (Apol. 1. 46). Was the reader 
prepared to hear Abraham and Elijah and other 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 801 

Jewish worthies called " Barbarians," and, with the 
learned Greeks walking after the Logos and really 
with them, " christians," after the very thing itself 
and not the name. 

What says St. Augustine ? " What is now 
called the Christian religion, has existed among the 
ancients, and was not absent from the be";innin2: of 
the human race, until Christ came in the flesh ; from 
which time, the true religion, which had existed 
already began to be called Christian ; and this in 
our days is the Christian religion, not as having 
been wanting in former times, but as having in later 
times received this name." (Angus, vol. 1. p. 12. 
Edited by Bassil, 1529). 

Lactantius says, (Lactan, Book 7), "And if there 
had been any one to have collected the truth that 
was scattered and diffused among sects and individ- 
uals into one, and to have reduced it into a system 
there would indeed have been no difierence between 
him and us." 

Eusebias, in b. 2. c. 17., Eccl. Hist., labors to 
prove from Philo v/hom he styles " one of them," 
that the Essenians of Alexandria in Egypt were 
really christians, and differed not from those of his 
day, though the name "Christian" had not been 
spread to every place, and thinks it highly probable 
that "their ancient commentaries are the very gos- 
pels and writings of the apostles." This is said of 
those who led the Contemplative life, or "Life of 
Prayer," known in Egypt and Jerusalem as Esseni-' 
ans, and in Greece as Therapeutae. Whether Euse- 



302 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

' bius would have us believe that the Essenians 
copied the writings of the apostles or the apostles 
their's, it matters little, for it is a known fact that 
Josephus speaks of them as a Jewish sect, and Philo 
also, that had existed long prior to the time of 
Jesus. It is also a notable fact that under their 
Greek name, " Therapeutae," which signifies doctor, 
healer or curer, they had existed in that country 
for ages. Now if in point of doctrine, practice and 
writing, they were identical with the Christians in 
apostolic times, as well as in the time of Eusebius 
nearly two hundred years later, the charge of copy- 
ing writings and adopting doctrines and practices 
lies against the Christians and not the Essenians, 
which fact taken in connection with the quotation 
in {^^Bhunt^s Philostratus," pp. 113,114, from Ludo- 
vicus Yivus), that " There could be no difference be- 
tween the Paganish and Popish worship before, 
images, but only this, that names and titles were 
changed, and that M. Dailla had demonstrated that 
"the Papists took their idolatrous. worship of im- 
agoes, as well as all other ceremonies from the old 
heati'jen religion," and the whole Christian fabric 
stands before us, built entirely of foreign material, 
for which, notwithstanding the admissions of the 
ancients, the moderns persistently refuse to give 
credit. 

This department of the investigation must close 
with very much material unused, with the caustic, 
yet just and philosophical rhetoricism of M. Tur- 
retin, "that it was not so much the empire that was 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 803 

brought over to the faith, as the faith that was 
brought over to the empire: not the Pagans who 
were converted to Christianity, but Christianity that 
was converted to Paganism." 

It now remains to be shown who and what was 
Christ, the central character of the New Testament. 

All Christendom believe him to have been Grod, 
although not till the fourth century was this settled 
by council, but not by unanimous vote. In the 
year 825, the dispute about his Godship so dis- 
tracted the churches, that Constantine, then Em- 
peror of Eome, called a council of Priests and 
Bishops to decide the vexed question. This council 
was composed of 818 members from all parts of the 
Christian world. 

Arrayed on one side were Athanasius and his 
followers, and on the other, Arius and those who 
sympathized with him. Athanasius claimed that 
Jesus was "light of light, truth of truth, very God 
of very God," which point was carried against the 
arguments of Arius, who was condemned to banish- 
ment and his writing^s committed to the flames, and 
the following "Nicene Creed" adopted. "We be- 
lieve in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of 
all things, visible and invisible; and in one Lord 
Jesus Christ, the S(m of God, the only begotten of 
the Father, that is, of the substance of the Father, 
God of God, light of light, true God of true God, 
begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father, 
by whom all things were made both in heaven and 
in earth; who for us men, and for our salvation, de- 



S04z BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

scended, was incarnate, and was made man, and 
sujffered, and rose again the third day; he ascended 
into heaven, and shall come to judge the living and 
the dead : and in the Holy Spirit. But the holy 
catholic and apostolic Church of God anathematizes 
those who affirm that there was a time when the 
Son was not, or that he was not before he was be- 
gotten, or that he was made of things not existing; 
or who say that the Son of God was of any other 
substance or essence, or created, or liable to change 
or conversion." 

That Christianity should claim a God manifest in 
the flesh, is not anomalous but just what we should 
look for. It has been shown in these pages that all 
religious sects and nations had claimed the same 
thing before them, eliciting the natural inquiry 
which was the true God since each claimed to have 
him ? Christians claim no more for their scriptures 
than others claim for theirs, and their divine avatar 
is no more than that of others unless they can show 
superiority of power or wisdom or marked origi- 
nality of character and teaching, by which he can 
be distinguished from all the gods that had preceded 
him, and all schools of philosophy and religion that 
had existed prior to his time. 

To prove the former would be impossible, since 
it has already been shown that each nation had 
claimed that its incarnate divinity was the creator of 
the world, and the saviour of men. As to the lat- 
ter, it is equally impossible, for, in the time of 
Eusebius, the great ecclesiastical historian who 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 305 

wrote 880 A. C, when the true doctrine of Christ 
was taught, and the true forms of religion observed, 
t-hat author claims that they were identical with the 
Essenians. He observes (B. 2, C. 17, p. 69) " All 
these, the above-mentioned author (Philo Judeas) 
has described aud stated in his writings, and are the 
same customs that are observed by us alone at the 
present day, particularly the vigils of the great 
festival and the exercises in them, and the hymns 
that are commonly recited among us." Further 
testimony and admissions would scarcely strengthen 
the evidence of identity between Christianity and 
the so-called paganism of eighteen ceaturies ago. 

Still Christ is claimed as an original character 
and real personage. Be the latter what it may, the 
former remains to be considered. In the Mahab- 
harata, an epic sacred poem of the Hindoos, we 
have so perfect a likeness of Jesus, that there can 
be no doubt of the copying of the character either 
the one way or the other. This character is Krish- 
na or Chrishna, of whom Christ is either a copy, or 
he of Christ. Christ or Jesus (his Greek name) was 
the incarnation of the " only begotten Son of God." 
Krishna was the incarnation of V^ishnu the only 
begotten son of the Universal Soul. 

Jesus was born of a virgin, so was Krishna. By 
the malice of Satan the life of Jesus was sousrht 

o 

through Herod, who slew all the young children 
of two years old and under in Judea. By the 
malice of Cansa, the Hindoo Herod, all the young 
children were slain, that the child Krishna might be 



306 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

destroyed. Jesus was saved by his parents fleeing 
the country and secreting him. Krishna was saved 
in like manner. Jesus knew intuitively, taught 
while very young the law and the prophets, and 
disputed with the lawyers. Krishna learned all the 
sacred literature of the Hindoos in a single day. 
Jesus taught that, by faith, mountains could be re- 
moved and cast into the sea. Krishna held a 
mountain on the tip of his little finger. Jesus 
mingled with the poor and preached the gospel to 
them. Krishna inclined to the laboring classes and 
particularly avoided the society of the rich, Jesus 
healed the sick and restored the dead to life. 
Krishna did the same. Jesus taught one God who 
is a spirit, and that his worship must be in spirit 
and in truth ; whom (God), no man hath seen at 
any time or can see. "Buddha, is the 9th incarna- 
tion of Yishnu or the continuation of Yishnu as 
Krishna." (Pieries Universal Lexicon vol. 3, p* 
423). "Buddha, or the 9th incarnation of Yishnu, 
taught One Supreme being who rules the Universe. 
He is formless and cannot be represented by man, 
and is incomprehensible. He is almighty, wise, 
just, lovely, kind and charitable." "His highest 
worship is silent meditation." (Ibid vol. 3, p. 324). 

Jesus washed the disciples' feet. Krishna washed 
the feet of the Brahmins. Jesus was crucified and 
went and preached to the spirits in prison, was 
dead three days, became the Judge of the dead, 
arose from the dead and ascended into heaven. 
Krishna was killed by an arrow that pierced his heel 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 307 

and ascended to "heaven in the sight of all who ex- 
claimed, " Lo, Krishna's soul ascends to its native 
skies." (Prog. Eelig. Ideas, vol. 1, p. 72). " After he 
had falfilled his mission he returned to heaven in the 
125th year of his age," (Pieries vol. 9, p. 827). It 
is here competent to remark that Pieries' Universal 
Lexicon is of the highest possible authority. It 
was compiled by the author whose name it bears, 
and is the contributions of seventy of the most 
learned men and savans of all Europe who were 
employed by the author for the express purpose of 
collecting material from the highest authentic 
sources, principally their own individual investi- 
gations for this work. 

The entire work consists of thirty-eight volumes 
of five hundred pages each, and was published at 
Altenburg in 1865. The series from which was 
procured the translation of the extracts herein 
given, expressly for this work, was imported from 
Germany for Joseph Thomas of Philadelphia, to aid 
in compling Lippencott's Lexicon of Theology and 
Mythology. Koeppen and Csoma have also been 
translated expressly for these pages. These re- 
marks are to show that no mean authorities have 
been relied on for the facts set forth in this investi- 
gation. 

Since the identity between Christ and Chrishna is 
so complete, there remains to be settled only the 
question of priority. Krishna, it will be remem- 
bered, was the 8th and Buddha the 9th incarnation 
of Vishnu, hence Krishna was first of the two, and 



308 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

must date further back, than Buddha. Touching 
the antiquity of Chrishna — this is the orthography 
given — on the part of modern christians, the highest 
authority that can be cited is that of Sir William 
Jones in his Asiatic Eesearches. " That the name 
of Chrishna, and the general outline of his story, 
were long anterior to the birth of our Savior, and 
probably to the time of Homer, we know very cer- 
tainly." (Asiatic Eesearches vol. 1. p. 269). "I am 
persuaded that a connection existed between the 
old idolatrous nations of Egypt, India, Greece and 
Italy long before the time of Moses" (Ibid. vol. l.p- 
259). " In the Sanscrit Dictionary, compiled more 
than two thousand years ago, we have the whole 
story of the incarnate deity, born of a virgin and 
miraculously escaping in his infancy from the reign- 
ing tyrant of his country." (Ibid. pp. 259, 260, 267, 
272, 273). 

The above work was written in 1784 and after- 
wards revised by the author Sir William, and pub- 
lished. " Krishna, the most famous and venerated 
god of the Hindoos, is the 8th incarnation of Vishnu 
which took place towards the latter part of the 
third period when sin and evil predominated as of old. 
Krishna appeared as a real god upon this earth, born 
of mortal parents. Kansa ordered him killed, but 
his parents succeeded in escaping from the country 
and took him to Yrindavana, where he was educ- 
ated by herdsmen." (Uni. Lex. vol. 9. p. 827). 

*' Yishnu appeared in the third period, in the 8th 
incarnation as Krishna, and in the 4th period in the 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 809 

9tli incarnation as Buddha." (Ibid. vol. 19. p. 
286). 

" Buddha was the continuation of the incarnation 
of Yishnu as Krishna. He proclaimed the same 
doctrine and tausfht the same relio:ion that Krishna 
had taught before him. Buddha did not leave any 
written teachings, they were given to his disciples 
Mahakadsha and others, and were collected for the 
Sanscrit three hundred years after his death, when 
the great council of Deschlandri assembled in Cash- 
mere three hundred years before Christ." (Ibid. 
vol. 3. p. 423). 

"He (Buddha) died when eighty-five years old. 
The time of his life and teachings, is, according to 
the chronology of the Mongolians, in 2214 to 2134 
before Chirst. According to Japanese and Chinese, 
he was born 1027 B. C. As far as researches up to 
date are concerned, they leave no doubt whatever 
that Buddha lived in the sixth century before 
Christ in India." (lb. vol. 3. p. 423). 

"The relisfion of Buddha was introduced into 
China sixty-five years after Christ," (lb. vol. 4, p. 6). 

"Buddhaism was introduced into Ceylon in the 
third century before Christ." (lb. vol. 3, p. 424). 
Carl Frederic Koeppen published a work in Berlin, 
in 1857, called The " Eeligion of Buddha and its 
origin." From his deep personal research into the 
literature, history, chronology and religion of 
Oriental nations, this work is of the highest author- 
ity. From page 119 of this work we take the fol- 
lowinor. "The Chinese chronolosrv drives us the 



310 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

year of Baddha's birth 1027 or 1029 B. C, and his 
death 949 or 950 B. C." A. Csoma, a celebrated 
writer, who studied oriental history and traditions 
from 1819 to 1842, a term of twenty-three years, in 
the eastern countries, principally in India, states in 
his Asiatic Eesearches that, *' Oriental writers give 
the time of Budda one thousand years before 
Christ." (Asiatic Eesearches by A. Csoma vol. 20,- 
p. 41). 

The accomplished and erudite Max Muller in his 
*' Chips from a German Workshop" uses, (vol. 1, p. 
202, the following in reference to the date of 
Buddha. " M. Barthelemy Saint Hilaire, following 
the example of Burnouf, Lassen and Wilson, ac- 
cepts the date of the Ceylnese era 543 as the date 
of Buddha's death. . . . The more plausible date of 
Buddha's death is 477 B. C." " For the purposes 
however which M. Barthelemy Saint Hilaire had 
in view, the difference is of small importance.'' 
Thus by unimpeached and unimpeachable authority, 
is it settled that Buddha lived at least 500 years 
before the days of Christ, and Chrishna was still 
earlier, and it is not supposable that two incarna- 
tions occured nearer than 500 years of each other, 
controlled as such supposed incarnations always are, 
by the too rapid increase of evil, which makes 
them necessary. This would place the date of 
Chrishna 1000 years before our era, and about the 
time of the composing of a portion of the Mahabha- 
rata in which his history occurs. " Mahabharata, 
one of the two great Hindoo national writings. It 



BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 811 

probably took more than 1000 years to write this 
poem, commeDcing 1800 B. C, it was fully reduced 
to writing in the third century before Christ." 
(Pieries vol. 10, p. 720). 

" Mahabharata was not intended as a beautiful 
* poem,' but as a collection of old, probably all tra- 
ditions, beginning with the most ancient time. 
We are led to this conclusion by the name of the 
compiler " Vyasa" or collector. The volume of this 
poem, which is nearly 100,000 double verses, makes 
its compilation by a single poet impossible. The 
work was probably written during a period of 1000 
years." (lb. vol. 10, p. 720). 

The evidence could scarcely be made stronger, 
that Chrishna lived, and his history was written at 
least 1000 years B. C. and as Sir William Jones 
states, there being "a connection between Egypt, 
India, Greece and Italy," at a very early date, there 
is no difficulty in accounting for the appearance of 
this history of Chrishna in the very cradle of 
Christianity ready to be adopted by the superstitious 
of that age. This conclusion the reader will find 
strengthened by reference to the work entitled "In- 
dia in Egypt and Greece," by Pocock, who might 
have added Italy also. With great propriety we 
might say that the Old Testament is a bungling 
counterfeit of the Sanscrit Yedas. and the New 
Testament a barefaced plagiarism so far as its cen- 
tral character is concerned of the Baghavet Geeta of 
the Mahabharata. Without a word of comment, 
the author leaves the above facts, pregnant with 



812 BIBLE IN THE BALANCE. 

their emergent conclusions upon the mind of the 
reflective reader. One point only remains to be 
noticed ; the remarkable passage in Josephus in 
which mention is made of Jesus. Did Josephus 
write that passage ? In the Jewish versions of 
Josephus, this passage does not occur, and it may 
remain an open question whether the Jews ex- 
punged or the Christians interpolated it. Happily 
however some Christian admissions on this point 
are of the greatest importance. " The passage in 
Josephus which speaks of Jesus, is, with greatest 
probability held to be genuine, though interpola- 
ted." (Text Book of Eccl. Hist, from the German 
of Geisler, Philadelphia, 1836, vol. 1. p. 43). " The 
most probable supposition is, that the passage is in- 
terpolated from Eusebius, which might easily hap- 
pen, as Josephus was copied and read only by 
Christians." (lb. vol. 1. p. 44). What have we 
here but a surrender of the last entrenchment of 
Christianity, the free admission that its founder, the 
man who convulsed with wonder, astonishment and 
admiration, all Jerusalem and Judea, by healing the 
sick, raising the dead, casting out demons, cleansing 
the lepers, preaching the gospel to the poor, dying 
voluntarily, rising from the dead and in the sight 
of his disciples ascending bodily to heaven is not so 
much as mentioned by the great Jewish historian 
at whose very threshold of time these wonders in 
attestation of his Messiaship are said to have been 
done ! There is no evidence they were done when 
and where the Bible asserts. 



INDEX. 

A. 

PAGE. 

Apostolic Epistles Alluded to, 35 

Alexandrian Version, No facts to support it, 41 

Aristeus and his story of the Alexandrian Version, 41 

Alexandrian council, error in dates, 43 

Alexandrian version root of the present and corrupt, 59 

Adam and Eve hide from God, 73 

Africa circumnavigated, 151 

Atlantis, America, 152 

Ancient Astronomy, 156 

Arabia inhabited by a pre-Semitic race, 164 

Aryan race in India, , 170 

Age of Niagara river valley, 206 

Age of the Somme valley, 208 

Alluvium of the Way, 212 

Age of the bone caverns, 220 

Abraham mingled with other nations, 253 

All religions claim inspiration, 254 

Age of the Hindoo nation, 277 

Age of Zoroaster, 278 

Ark of God, 289 

Age of Buddhaism in Ceylon, 309 

Antiquity America, 233 

Age of the mounds, 249 

B. 

Bible contradictions about God, 75 

Bible language and style, 77 

Bible chronology, 115 

Bunsen on Bible chronology, 110 

Berosus, 158 

Bible at variance with geology in creation, 186 



II INDEX. 

PAGE. 

Brixliam cave, 322 

Buddha, 309 

Bralim possessed of three attributes, 261 

Bible teaches three celestial beings, 264 

Biluxie mound, 236 

0. 

Conglomerate ball burial, 239 
Civilization not born in a night, 136 
Comparative philology and mythology, 143 
Chinese civilization 5000 years old, 144 
Cyclopean Arch, 146 
Coast of Syria, 14'> 
Calisthenes sent Astronomical tables, 156 
Ceylon and Java their ruins, 173 
Clay Pit at Hoxne, 109 
Celts and stone hatchets not of the same age, , 215 
Cave of Aurignac, . 223 
Chinese Idea of God, 257 
Chinese on the fall of man, 267 
Cherubim, 289 
Circumcision, 292 
Council of Nice, 303 
Christ a copy of Krishna, 812 
Clemens Alexandrinus quotes the apocryphal books, 30 
Clemens Accepts the Epistle to the Hebrews, 30 
Cerinthus forged the Eevelations, 30 
Condition of the Hebrew camp, 113 
Chronology by generations, 116 
Connection between India, Egypt, Greece and Italy, Ad- 
mission of Sir W. Jones, 131 

D. 

De Wette, 11 

David's gift to the temple, 61 

Deluge, 62 

David's terrible prayer, 72 

DiflSculty of the Jews subsisting, 103 



INDEX III 

PACK. 

Descendants of Levi, 107 
Dates of creation and deluge from different versions of the 

Bible, 123 

Dates claimed by the Egyptians, 131 

Dr. Schmerling and osseous caverns, 217 

Danish peat bogs, 224 

E. 

Eusebius on the N. T. canon, 35 

Epiphanius on the Septuagint translation, 43 

Eusebius on the Hexapla, 53 

Egypian civilzation 10,000 B. C, ' 155 

Ethiopia oldest civilized nation, 1G2 

Egypt, Pyramids, Sphinx, etc., 164 

Excavations in India, 172 

Europe, Asia and Africa uninhabitable, 215 

Egyptian idea of God, ^ 258 

End of the world according to the Hindoos, 271 

End of the world according to the Persians, 272 

Egyptian theology older than the Jewish, 270 

Egyptian Pyramids of Masonic origin, 280 

Egyptian Religion known to the Jews, 280 

Future of Man, 79 

Fairy liock, 174 

Flint implements at Abbeville, 109 

Flint implements at Amiens, 201 

Flint implements at St. Achuel, 201 

Fhnts in the museum of Antiquaries, 209 

Flint weapon in the British museum, 211 

Fort Rosalie and De Soto, 237 

G. 

Geological facts and biblical chronology, 231 

God made two revelations, 253 

God's appearance to Abraham, 200 

God has three personalities, 2G1 



IV ^ INDEX. 

PAGE. 

God in the flesh taught by all nations, 261 

Great synagogue a myth, DeWette, Eichhorn, 13 

God's reason for the deluge, 67 

God's jealousy, 73 

God's appearance to Abraham, Moses, etc., 74 

Gliddon's Egyptian chronology considered, 127 

Greek heroes pre-Hellenic, 142 

Gadiz, 150 

Grecian Archipelago, 165 

Geology, 185 

H. 

Hexapla of Origin, 50 

Hebrew children in the fiery furnace, 70 

Human remains in Florida, 189 

Human remains at New Orleans their age, 190 

Hindoo scriptures teach one God, 255 

Hindoos believed in evil spirits, 262 

Hindoos on the fall of man, 266 

Holy mountain of the Jews and Chinese, 268 

I. 

Irenseus quotes the second Epistle of John but not Philemon 

and rejects the second of Peter, 30 

Irenseus rejects the Epistle to the Hebrews, 30 

Irenseus on the Septuagint translation, 44 

Island of Kuad, 149 

Islands of Sanborin and Therasia, 165 

Irish Lake Islands, 228 

Idolatrous worship of christians, 302 

Interior of a mound, 238 

J. 

Josephus, 0. T. Canon, twenty two books, 12 

Justin Martyr on the Septuagint translation, 43 

Jewish idea of God, 258 

Jews on the fall of man, 266 

Jehovah; God of the Jews, 287 



INDEX. 



Jehovah is a tutelary deity and finite, 
Jews believed in spirit communion, 
Justin Martyr on prayer, 
Justin Martyr, claim for the christian belief, 
Justin Martyr on Christ as the Logos, 



K. 



Eemarks on the Pentateuch, 
Konrick on chronology, 
Kent's Hole, 
Krishna Jesus Christ, 
Krishna a venerated god, 
Krishna before Christ, 



PAGE. 

293 
295 
298 
299 
300 



114 
120 
231 
805 
808 
811 



Length of the procession, 
Lactantius and the christian faith, 

M. 

Military force of the Jews, 

Moses speaking to the congregation, 

Menes B. C. and before Adam, 

Marathas, 

Monuments of Western Europe, 

Monolithic temples, 

Mr. Prestwich's memoir, 

Man fallen from a state of purity, 

Moses, His birth and education, 

Mauetho's account of Moses and the exodus, 

Moses an Egyptian priest ofHelippolis, 

ISEoses changes his name from Osarsiph, 

Max MuUer, 

Mahabharata, 

Mounds of the Mississippi valley, 

N. 



96 

801 



84 

108 
127 
149 
168 
175 
220 
266 
282 
283 
286 
286 
800 
810 
233 



No. of sheep and Goats, 



93 



VI INDEX. 

PAGE. 

No deluge in 2348 B. C, nor in 3124 B. C, 132 

Natchez bone, 192 

Natchez bone. Mr- Lyell's theory, 231 

Noah and Satyvarata compared, 276 

New Testament doctrines, 297 

New Testament, not new in the time of Eusebius, 297 

Nicene creed, , 803 

Number seven, 247 

New Testament, accounted inspired, 11 

New Testament, Canon Shrouded in mystery, 28 

New Testament, Apostolic Fathers refer to it, 24 

New Testament, No canon found, 29 

New Testament, Authors differ as to books, 80 

New Testament, Divided into Evangile and Apostle, 30 

Syriac versions differed, 30 

No. of the Hebrews, 89 

Notifying the Children of Israel to depart, 91 

O. 

O. T., Hebrew and Chaldee, 11 

O. T., Apocryphal Writings later, 11 

O. T., Canon arbitrary, 12 

O. T., Talmud twenty four books, ' 12 

O- T., Canon settled by no authority, 13 
O^ T., Ezra restores the text. Denied by christian writers, 13 

O. T., As a whole B. C, 130, 14 
O. T., Emuneration of books, * 15 

O* T., The Jew's knew no canon, 15 

O. T., Samaritan canon five books, 16 

O. T., Canon of the Sadducees, 17 

O. T., Alexandrian canon no facts to sustain it, 19 

O, T., Palestine Jews did not agree to it, 19 

O. T., Esdras 14. 44, is against a canon, 20 

O. T., No canon whatever before Christ, 22 

O. T., Among the early christians, 23 

Origin on the N. T. canon, 33 

O. T-, Versions, 39 



INDEX. VII 

PAGE. 

Origin of the Jewish religion, 250 

Orpheus' idea of God, 256 

Ormuzd created the -world, 263 

Ormuzd and Arimanes were angels, 25B 

Offering to the new moon, 290 

Offering for the sins of the people, 290 

P. 

Philo Judeas a christian, 801 

Pieries' Universal Lexicon, 807 

Population of the Mississippi valley, 235 

Pyramid of Cholula, 250 

Paul's dissimulation, 79 

Passage of the Red sea, • 99 

Prof Lenormant on chronology, 117 

Prichard on chronology, 121 

Pre- Adamite Monumental history, 184 

Philology, 136 

Phoenicians in Scandinavia, 151 

Prof. Leidy, 194 

Persian idea of God, 257 

Q. 

Quails fall about the camp, 68 

R. 

Ruins of Mexico and Peru, 175 

Ruins of Central America, 250 

Reflections on the N. T. canon, 86 

S. 

Samaritan story of the septuagint tranplation, 46 

Septuagint version of no historic reliability, 47 

Samson and his exploits, 69 

Slavery instituted, 71 

Sacrifices, 110 

Sir Henry Rawlinson, 1(51 

Sanscrit Race, 169 



VIII INDEX. 

PAGE. 

Stone chain, 173 

Sir Charles Lyell on the Natchez bone, 194 

Shell mounds, peat bogs and bone caverns, 209 

Shell mounds described, 225 

Swiss lake dwellings, 228 

Sir Charles Lyell, • 229 

Sacred writings, the voice of God, 255 

Swine are unclean to Jews and Egyptians, 291 

St. Augustine on the christian religion, 301 

Skeleton burial, 239 

Stone axes, 247 

T. 

Temple of Elephanta, 171 
Thickness of the earth's crust, 186 
Tropical climate in England, . 212 
Three epochs of vegetation in Denmark, 225 
Three periods of Danish history, 237 
The judgment according to the Persians 273 
The judgment according to Persians and christians com- 
pared, 274 
Tree of life, 274 
The deluge of the Jews and Hindoos compared, 275 
Tabernacle, 288 
The brazen serpent, 291 
Time of the birth and death of Buddha, 310 
Tornado at Natchez, 242 
Tortoise, 247 
Tertullian rejects the Epistle to the Hebrews, 30 
Theodotion's version, 49 
Three septuagint vresions Origin, Lucian and Hesychius, 55 
The Pentateuch, 81 
The Passover, 85 
The Hebrews depart, 94 
Theory of the Deluge, 160 

U. 

Usher, s chronology, 115 

Ur of the Chaldees 10,000 years old, 159 



INDEX. IX 

PAGE. 

Urim and Thummin, 288 

Urn burial, 240 

V. 

Version of Aquila. Jerome commends it, 48 

Version of Symmaclius, 49 

Various versions, 57 

Virgins reserved, 71 

Valley of the Somme, 197 
Valley of the Oise and Seine, 

Valley of the Thames, 213 

VaUey of the Ouse, 213 

Women of Midian slain, Tt 

Wilkinson on the deluge, 125 

Wilkinson's absurdity in dates, 125 

Walls of the Tyrens, 146 

Wuswas ruin at Warka, 155 

Writing and inscriptions among the ancients, 177 

Waters above and below the firmament, 293 

Z. 

Zodiac, its age, 130 

Zend-a Vesta on the creation, 262 



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